Kanadukathan lies around a one and a half hour drive along rural highways from the nearest airport. It has many features travellers would expect from a remote South Indian village: cows grazing freely along dusty, weed-fringed lanes, temple pools where the faithful bathe before prayers, and cubby-hole artisan workshops for weaving and woodcarving.
What comes as a surprise, even for those who have done their research, is that instead of humble abodes, the village streets are lined by mile after mile of colossal historic mansions.
The hulking villas and palaces are organised in a grid pattern, each just a few metres from its neighbours. Every one is unique; a colourful confection of Italianate balustrades, castle-like turrets, classical marbled columns, hefty Burmese teak doors and Hindu statuary.
And Kanadukathan is just one of 73 villages and two towns in the area known as Chettinad in the Tamil Nadu region, estimated to be home to around 10,000 of these extraordinary, incongruous residences – many long-since abandoned or lacking maintenance. The choice of housing style is seemingly baffling, but it tells the story of a community’s trading prowess, staggering wealth, cultivated tastes – and downfall.
In recent years, the Chettinad area has seen an uptick in tourism, as new hotels have opened in restored mansions, tours have become available, and the nearest airport expanded. Here’s why travellers are visiting this rural South Indian region of forgotten architectural treasures.
Stay in a restored party mansion in rural India
Given the remoteness of the Chettinad region – an hour’s flight from Chennai, where international flights arrive, to Tiruchirappalli airport, plus a one to two hour drive – tourism only really began to pick up following the opening of well-serviced hotels.
And what building is better suited to becoming a luxury property than a historic mansion replete with swathes of courtyards, ballrooms and roof terraces?
The first hotel to open in the area was the Bangala. It is still run by Meenakshi Meyyappan, who transformed her husband’s ancestral home from an exclusive gentlemen’s club into visitor accommodation in 1999.
The property retains the feel of a tasteful family home, with artfully mismatched period furniture, shaded verandas, a lush garden and myriad memorabilia from black and white photos to a pot filled with walking canes.
Despite its elegance, it feels humble compared to the latest hotel to take over a historic mansion in the village of Kanadukathan. THE Lotus Palace, owned by THE Park Hotels group, dazzles visitors with a riotous, freshly repainted facade of red, royal blue, ochre and white balustrades, pilasters, urns and balconies.
Classical ionic columns sit beside an electric blue statue of the Hindu god Krishna, and lotus petals decorate Renaissance-style arches in lavish cultural fusion.
Staff in pistachio green traditional cotton sarees usher guests beneath the portico supported by weighty satin wood pillars and through a teak door deeply carved with virtuoso foliage motifs and inlaid with black parrots eating chillies.
The 10,000 forgotten mansions of the Chettiar merchants
What makes these properties so easily adaptable into hotels is their original ceremonial function. As well as houses, they were spaces to gather the clan and hold sumptuous parties celebrating life-defining rituals from Hindu ear piercing to marriage.
In the streets around THE Lotus Palace, there are other restored historic residences still lived in by families that you can pay a small fee to visit. By the third or fourth tour, you notice that the mansions follow similar grandiose floor plans, with a porticoed entrance, front hall (or marriage hall), three spacious open courtyards and dozens of rooms leading off both the ground and upper central spaces.
At THE Lotus Palace, the raised plinth of the front hall functions as the reception area. Originally, this space would have been dedicated to business affairs. The first courtyard, once for family social and religious activities, is now a light-filled area decorated with floral motifs coloured by painters from the nearby temple where guests can relax.
The second courtyard, originally for dining and where the women slept, has been transformed into a leafy, softly-lit dining space. The third courtyard, which once would have housed the cooking quarters, is now taken over by a large pool.
The various rooms leading off the courtyards and upstairs balcony were once for storage – families slept in the communal spaces – and have now been adapted into bedrooms.
Today, most of the mansions of exuberant exteriors and extravagant indoor spaces look decidedly dejected, with weathered facades in need of a repaint and plants pushing tendrils through roof tiles.
But their nobility, albeit faded, is inescapable. In the 19th and 20th centuries, a mercantile community known as the Chettiars poured their flourishing wealth into these properties – on every facade is a statue of the Hindu goddess of prosperity, Lakshmi.
The Chettiars were gem, spice and salt traders as far back as the 13th century, but the coastal-dwelling community was forced to flee from a tsunami and retreated inland to a higher-lying area of the Tamil Nadu region.
Given the barren nature of their new homeland, the Chettiars continued to amplify their wealth by becoming travelling moneylenders and traders. By the 19th century, they had become indispensable to the British Empire. On THE Lotus Palace facade, two statues that were originally Hindu figures were converted into a soldier and a Victorian woman, likely reflecting the family’s collaboration with British officials.
Their business acumen led them to establish strong trade links with Burma (Myanmar), Malay (Malaysia), Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Indochina. But they rarely invested their fortunes abroad, instead adorning their properties back home with treasures from around the globe: Italian marble flooring, Belgian glass-worked mirrors, and English cast-iron columns.
The downfall of the Chettiars
But these halcyon days were not to last. A trip to the antique shops in the town of Karaikudi is wondrous but sobering. Tiny stores and open garages are crammed with lampshades, brassware, traditional Tanjor paintings and wooden statues salvaged (or pillaged, depending on who you ask) from the mansions.
There are also entire teak wood doors – it takes six men to heave one onto the back of a truck – rows of mismatched carved columns and delicately painted safes.
In the 20th century, the Chettiars faced devastating blows to their business ventures, starting with WWII, followed by India’s independence and a crippling domestic tax.
Not a community to easily admit defeat, they pragmatically redirected their tightly-held savings towards education, with younger generations forming a professional class of bankers and financiers.
But these Chettiars continued to seek their fortunes abroad, and the grandiose mansions back home, already suffering from fractious ownership after being inherited by an ever-growing number of relatives, were neglected.
Chettinad cotton sarees and meals fit for a king
New hotels – a local guide points out two more properties currently undergoing transformation – are giving some of these residences a new lease of life.
And they are also promoting the cherished traditions of the remote region. Artisan crafts still flourish. At Venkatramani Thari Chettinad, visitors can watch the supple fingers of a craftsman weaving cotton on a handloom into a classic saree. At the Athangudi tile factory, half a dozen workers hand-craft tiles from local sand and cement, free-pouring paint into astonishingly precise patterns.
Not only are these workshops solely reachable by car, but they are also difficult to locate, so hotels engage local guides and provide transport, facilitating access to the region’s attractions.
There are also points of interest that guests of THE Lotus Palace can visit independently on foot. Nelli’s shop, just down the road, sells traditional handicrafts like kottan baskets and handwoven towels. She also has a range of Chettinad sarees, and inside there is always a crush as women from cities outside the region stock up on fabric, video calling friends to check what colours they want.
Food is also fundamental. Given their love of celebrations, the Chettiars have culinary traditions as lavish as their houses.
At THE Lotus Palace and other hotels, guests can try the Raja Virundhu experience – which literally translates as ‘meal fit for a king’.
Waiters swap placemats and plates for a freshly washed banana leaf, onto which they spoon 21 little piles of tasty morsels like mango rice, dal powder with ghee, deep-fried cauliflower and mutton curry. It is a lengthy, ceremonial process perfectly suited to a wedding.
At THE Lotus Palace, there’s also a high tea available to experience in The Red Room, a Burmese-themed lacquer lounge. Forget dry cucumber sandwiches. Tiered stands arrive groaning with spiced lamb meatballs, tempered chickpeas with coconut, raw banana bhajjis and sweets made of dal flour, jaggery and ghee.
As you feast on such culinary indulgences, surrounded by historic splendour, it’s easy to imagine the glory of such houses and their occupants in their heyday, a glimmer of which may still be on the horizon if tourism in the area can continue to give back to the local community.
