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Napean Sea Road
LaxmiNivas
The Times of India, Aug 01 2016
Nauzer Bharucha
20th century marvel Laxmi Nivas for sale
Laxmi Nivas, built in 1904 and one of the few remaining bungalow properties in Nepean Sea Road, has been put on the block by its owners, the Kapadia family . Such properties in this location have fetched over Rs 400 crore.
During the freedom struggle, several Indian political personalities like Jayprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, Aruna Asaf Ali and Achyut Patwardhan used it as a safe house in the early 1940s. Jawaharlal Nehru, too, visited the bungalow late one night for a secret meeting, 86-year-old Usha Banerjee, who inherited the property from her late father, told TOI on Sunday . Kasturba Gandhi was another prominent personality who came here on a couple of occasions.
The house was bought by the Kapadias--who made their fortune in the cotton trade--for a little over one lakh rupees in 1917 from a Parsi family .
The property is spread across 1,865 sq m (20,000 sq ft) and is a two-storeyed building with an added floor which was built a few years after it was bought. It has high ceilings, overhanging portico verandahs, shuttered wooden window frames, colonial-style balustrades, winding staircases, turn-of-the-century floorings and tiles supported with solid wooden construction.
Nikhil Bhatia, MD, Capital Markets at CBRE India, which is handling the sale, said: “Real estate assets of this stature do not come into the market often. CBRE understands the nuances of handling such historically prominent and unique landmark assets with the sensitivity that they deserve.“
