It’s the lunch crowd at Kolkata’s Sienna Café, famous for its market-to-table menu and use of local ingredients with global imagination. But what I love most about this place, which opened in 2015, is its location.
“Before becoming the home base for the Ciena family, the house at 49/1 Hindustan Park used to be the residence of Nihar Bala Devi, which was built in 1933 and passed down through three generations of women to their grandchildren,” says Shiuli Ghosh, owner of Ciena. “Although it needed some serious improvements, the nearly 90-year-old home had a lot of character. There have been many changes in Sienna over the years, but we’ve tried to stay true to the original essence of the space.” Originally occupying only the ground floor, the enterprise has expanded upwards and now includes an events space on the first floor.
Despite the changes, the house’s features that are common to many buildings in the area – high ceilings, slatted French-style windows, ornate cast iron grills, wooden shingles on the roof, semi-circular verandahs, and square ventilators with floral cast iron grilles – have been retained.
“The staircase with ornate iron railings came with the house, and we tried our best to preserve these vintage (and well-loved) architectural aspects while upgrading our space,” says Ghosh. The handmade ceramic mural tiles on the floor and walls are designed and hand-painted by the establishment’s master potter, Bappa.da Darunda, in his workshop in Santiniketan, adds character to the space.
This trend of renovating old Calcutta houses and converting them into cafes has become popular in the south of the city. The four-storey Red Bari, which houses a café, co-working space, event space and bed and breakfast, has taken a similar approach. Located near the Kalighat Kali Temple in the old neighbourhood, this 1920s structure has been meticulously restored by owners Avantika Jalan and her husband John Grams.
“The house was known locally as ‘Lal Bari’ or the Red House and I knew I wanted to take it back to its roots,” says Jalan, “I wanted people to appreciate its beauty and character and make it relevant again.”
Solidly constructed, the building did not require much structural repair. Its first two floors are made of chun-shurki, a durable and water-resistant traditional building material of lime binder mixed with ground baked brick dust. The upper floors, built in the 1930s and 40s, are cement. The original shuttered windows have been retained, although double layer glass has been incorporated on the bed and breakfast floors to reduce noise.
Jalan had the specialty of Bengal Cori-Borga Inspired beams were installed in the high-ceilinged rooms of the first three floors, and track lights were also included for illumination. The beautiful sloping roof of the verandahs on the first and second floors was strengthened internally, and the wooden exterior was replicated from old Calcutta buildings. The distinctive Calcutta red oxide floors on the ground floor and first level, the Italian marble in the entrance of the ground floor café, and the intricately patterned cement tile floors of the event space and bed and breakfast apartments have all been left untouched. The event space on the third floor is highly flexible, consisting of three large, interconnected rooms – one of which has four-sided colonial Indo-Saracenic-style arched windows, providing panoramic views of the neighbourhood.
Although such a complete and conscious transformation of entire buildings is still rare, many other cafes, from independent chains like Tribe and 8th Day to national chains like Blue Tokai and Roastery and even Calcutta classic Flurries, have made use of the ground floors of old houses in South Kolkata.
Shilpa Chakraborty, co-founder and partner of Tribe, says she chose an old building for the café’s first outlet near Gol Park because she wanted it to have the feel of an old building. living room Or a traditional Bengali living room.
“The owners of the space were specifically looking for tenants who would try to maintain its character, and I loved its homely feel and the natural light coming in from the tall doors and windows,” she says. “So, we preserved its layout and designed the café around the house.”
A similar principle inspired Grant Walsh, owner of the 8th Day café chain. “Our Salt Lake, Ballygunge and Hindustan Park outlets are all residential buildings that we have renovated,” he says. It wasn’t always easy. Converting a house near Kolkata’s Vivekananda Park into an 8th Day outlet in 2018 was particularly challenging. “The house was in really good shape and I became friends with the landlord, but converting something from one bedroom and a bathroom into a café is a big job, no matter what,” he says.
At the time, the only café like 8th in the area was Sienna. Despite the challenges of the conversion, such as meeting safety requirements along with different regulations from local authorities for commercial and residential spaces, the outlet with ample parking and al fresco seating space is a big hit. Like Red Bari, 8th Day’s new Ballygunge location has retained the traditional red oxide floors of the original house.
“Conversion of old properties into hospitality or retail spaces, as seen in South Kolkata, is a positive trend,” says Monica Khosla Bhargava, architect, Kham Consultants. “Buildings are being renovated, and the distinctive urban morphology of the area is being preserved. The brick-and-mortar essence of the structures remains intact.”
She says it is important to recognize that this change in land use changes the character of the neighborhood as the “para” (Bengali for ‘neighbor’) is gradually eliminated. “These residential initiatives, along with the emergence of local cafés and boutiques, can foster the perfect regenerative environment for a mixed-use neighborhood,” she says.
Iftikhar Ahsan, entrepreneur and founder of heritage walking tour company Calcutta Walks, agrees. He says, “This beautiful integration of commercial and residential, spiritual and everyday life in Calcutta has always been connected in one neighbourhood, Para, of which we are all very proud and attached.”
Ahsan himself has initiated a similar project called Calcutta Bungalow – a bed and breakfast in North Kolkata, for which he and his team transformed a 99-year-old house into a modern home stay while maintaining the typical Indo-European features of larger houses in those areas.
“I’m in the business of giving walking tours, taking people around and showing them cities,” he says. “When I’m looking at all this, I often think about how I’m showing people things that are disappearing. And that made me realize I needed to do something more permanent – I needed to save a house.”
“Adaptive reuse is the way to go for Kolkata’s built heritage,” says Tathagata Niyogi, heritage expert and co-founder of Immersive Trails, a marketplace for expert-led experiences in India. “Mumbai’s Art Deco complex has got the UNESCO World Heritage tag. I think Kolkata has a rich Art Deco heritage and converting old and semi abandoned places into livable spaces is the way to keep them relevant and the heritage value alive.”
Walsh says this trend is partly a response to demand for commercial spaces in Kolkata. “Homeowners are looking for income and if they move to a different floor above their home, they can also meet the demands of India’s thriving economy,” he says.
Walsh believes Kolkata’s nature is also a factor. “People here love to live in each other’s homes, in communities – they just love to live together,” he says. “This is better expressed through residential neighborhoods than commercial areas. It’s a reflection of the beautiful communal nature of the city.”
Rash Mukherjee is a freelance journalist based in Kolkata.
