The Ivory Rooms
A 1930s haveli converted into twenty-two rooms, where every original surface that could be kept was kept.
Project information
- Location
- Udaipur, Rajasthan
- Year
- 2024
- Type
- Boutique hotel, 22 keys
- Area
- 21,000 sq ft
- Scope
- Interior architecture, FF&E, guest experience, lighting
- Status
- Completed
Design concept
Repair before replacement
The building had been altered continuously for ninety years. Rather than choosing a single date to restore back to, we treated every layer as legitimate and repaired what was there — patched plaster stayed patched, replaced stone was cut slightly proud so the join reads.
Twenty-two keys were fitted into a plan that never intended them. No two rooms are identical; six are genuinely odd. We resisted normalising them, and the odd rooms are now the ones guests request by number.
New work is unmistakably new. Bathrooms, service risers and the entire lighting scheme are detailed in brass and pink sandstone and set slightly apart from the historic fabric, never blended into it.
Material palette
What the room is made of
Pink sandstone
Local quarry, hand-dressed. Thresholds, basins, courtyard paving.
Brass
Cast and spun by a workshop three streets from the site.
Glazed clay
Room numbers, lamp bases and bathroom tile, all one glaze.
Architecture
Decisions in plan and section
Fabric
68% of original wall and floor surfaces retained; new interventions set 20mm proud of old.
Courtyard
The central court reopened after decades of infill, now the arrival and dining space.
Services
All risers external to the historic walls, in a single blackened steel spine.
Interior
Decisions you can touch
Rooms
Twenty-two keys, eleven layouts. Furniture built per room rather than per type.
Lighting
2200K throughout the public areas; nothing brighter than a table lamp after dark.
Textiles
Block-printed cotton and raw silk from four regional workshops.
Gallery
The Ivory Rooms in sequence
Project facts
Project facts
31 months
Duration
22 across 11 layouts
Keys
68%
Fabric retained
9 engaged
Local workshops
Demo project — client and figures are sample content
