Niche, indie, high-end: How businesses like Tahiliani Homes will define luxury realty of the future

AIS Glass Villa by Tahiliani Homes.

These are rather tough times for most businesses, but for businesses such as the indie luxury real estate company, Tahiliani Homes, headlined by designer and master of drapes Tarun Tahiliani’s young son, the 29-year-old Jahan Tahiliani, it is far more difficult.

It was just a short three months ago that they extended their real estate development and design company into the world of hospitality and high-end vacation rentals. With the current lockdown, the hospitality end of the real estate business has been paralysed. “Short term rentals will take a backseat and we won't see too many weekend visitors or trips for a few months at least. But we are seeing an increase in enquiries for long-term rentals and longer-duration stays. It's an interesting time, without any clarity on the timelines ahead.”

Hopefully, as things settle down in a few months, what will survive is the business that involves posh, individualistic homes designed by a team led by Tarun Tahiliani. Sporting architecture by independent architects, among them Sameep Padora, these swish villas are located in some of the ritziest parts of states such as Goa and cities such as Delhi and Hyderabad. The six-year-old company has already delivered over Rs 100 crore worth of inventory for its clients and hopes to expand to Mumbai, Bangalore, Coonoor and other cities and towns.

So, what's an economics scholar, son of India’s foremost fashion designer, doing in the luxury real estate business? Jahan studied economics in the US and last worked with CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) capital markets team. “Isn’t economics the basis of everything you do? It gives you a framework within which you can think,” he says. He joined the legacy business five years ago, but not on the fashion design front. Rather, he chose to metamorphose the fledgling interior design business into a hipster real estate-meets-home and hospitality design company.

Just as an aside: Niche real estate and design companies are a global trend today. For instance, in Britain, indie companies like Fizzy, Pocket and Igloo are shaking up the real estate market not with volumes, but with interesting projects.

Tahiliani Homes, the real estate development and design unit of Tarun Tahiliani Design, works in two ways: To build villa properties or luxury serviced homes, one to three to five villas on a site and then sell them. They also have launched their high-end vacation rental business. “We offer after-sales maintenance and concierge services. We help our buyers to rent out their villas to vacationers, particularly for our projects in a tourist destination like Goa, which is where our real estate story also began.”

The other, equally important part of the business is their built-on-site projects, where they offer design solutions – from architecture to interiors, customised according to a client’s needs. “From identifying the land and designing the home, to the materials we carefully source and the inspirations that guide us, it is an end-to-end design service for both inner-city and destination homes.”

Here is how Tahiliani Homes set the trend of innovative, small luxury real estate companies and what defines them.

The evolution from space design to a luxury real estate company: “There was a lot of pressure on me to join the legacy fashion business, but I wasn’t convinced about getting into retail. I am not a designer,” recalls Jahan. “So I worked with different companies, including CBRE, where I got a bird’s eye view of the realty industry, micro markets and what High Networth Indians are buying. By then, Tarun had already forayed into the home design business.”

The beginning of the space design business for Tarun was his family home just outside Delhi, and then the family vacation home in Goa. “The Goa villa was very Geoffrey Bawa-style (the Sri Lankan architect of mixed German, Scottish and Sinhalese descent) – outdoors-meet-indoors, tropical architecture, et al.” A few years later, he sold the home and moved on to design other projects, including a turnkey project on a piece of land he bought, and The Sol, a boutique hotel for Sun Estates., purely, Tarun states, “as part of my creative process”.

Jahan Tahiliani.

Jahan says he joined the space design business in 2014 and realised over time that the economics was skewed heavily in favour of the developer. “They were leveraging Tarun’s design ethos, his name, and our brand and paying us just a licence fee. On a Rs 15 crore project, we were earning a Rs 50 lakh fee. I had to fight this out, even to convince my father that we needed to give up the licensing businesses and move into development and design. Now, either we develop and design the properties on our own and sell them, or work on a joint development model where we are partners and design principal.”

The division, which Jahan runs out of a different studio and not from Tarun Tahiliani Design office, has 12 employees, including architects and interior designers. This doesn’t include the team of concierges, hosts and maintenance guys in Goa for the vacation rental business.

The homes they have built: From glass and Accoya wood villa for AIS Glass as the showcase for can be done, architecturally, with high-end processed glass, to three villas in a Goan village called Nachinola, bought by a Hyderabad family, to homes in Delhi (including a treehouse built on stilts), and a design project for a big south star, who Jahan is wary of naming, Tahiliani Homes has worked on individualistic projects.

Design aesthetics: Verdant spaces that are seamlessly integrated deftly handcrafted materials and finishes, muted shades of ivory, taupe, grey and black complementing each other, are some of the elements that define a Tahiliani Home, says Jahan. “Our signature style is India Modern. It involves looking at our architecture and design traditions, our artisans, through the prism of modernity. We work with all kinds of artisans across India, from marble craftsmen to Aligarh carpet weavers to Moradabad brass artisans, use indigenous materials such as local laterite stone in our Goa projects. The way craftsmen are approaching their craft is rapidly changing. Though steeped in tradition, it has a new face. We offer them a design direction to ensure it is less ‘crafty’ and more sophisticated.”

However, for those who do not “buy into the India Modern” aesthetics, Tahiliani Homes offer India Artisanal (far more detailed and embellished), Classic (drawing from colonial architecture and the Art Deco movement) and Contemporary (more steel and glass). “Often people like us to blend two styles, India Modern with Classic or India Modern with Contemporary,” he says. Their homes in Goa range from the very modern AIS Glass Villa to the more Portuguese-style villas that bring together the elements of the outdoors within the interiors via water bodies and a central courtyard.

Why people invest in a niche luxury real estate property: “Because it is of the highest quality. A buyer is involved in every part of the process, from architecture to the design; we incorporate their artefacts, art and furniture into the home design. It is a personal journey of building your own home without dealing with a million people, from contractors to architects and structural engineers.”

The foray into the hospitality business: As the sharing economy grows, most buyers of luxury vacation homes choose to leverage their assets and get a yield out of their investment. “As we see this trend become more popular, our hospitality division will help clients achieve this goal by putting up the properties for holidaymakers to choose from. The income generated from this will allow the homeowners to cover all of the expenses that are associated with their villa and additionally make a return on their investment,” says Jahan. Their concierge team assists owners and vacationers with restaurant bookings, spa services, home entertainment, boat rentals, and more, much like a five star hotel would.

Deepali Nandwani is a journalist who keeps a close watch on the world of luxury.