The Better India
Goa has a reputation for reinvention. Old Portuguese houses turned into boutique hotels. Paddy fields sold off and paved over. Hillsides terraced and tamed. For decades, the promise of tourism revenue has redrawn the state’s geography in concrete and tile. But 15 minutes from the beach crowds of Candolim, tucked behind a road that most visitors would never think to turn to, something unusual has happened, or rather, something precious has been allowed to remain. Wildflower Villas is spread across eight acres of forested land in Candolim, North Goa. I realised this the moment I entered the gates of Wildflower Villas, a boutique stay designed around a living forest rather than carved out of one. The air felt cooler, the light softer, as if the trees themselves had decided to keep the outside world at a distance. There were no manicured lawns or carefully staged landscapes. Instead, the villas seemed to appear where the land allowed them to, half-hidden between thick foliage, their sloping roofs and wraparound balconies opening out to nothing but green. The villas were built around existing trees and the natural topography of the estate. In a state where development often begins by clearing what exists, this small, family-run stay in Candolim is proof that building can also begin with restraint. To understand why this forest survives, you have to go back to where the story really begins. The forest came first. Everything else had to fit around it Wildflower Villas stands on land that has been in the Navelkar family for generations, long before North Goa became a destination for boutique stays and holiday homes. When I asked about the origins of the property, Amol Navelkar, who conceptualised and built the retreat, said that they began with the forest itself. Amol Navelkar conceptualised Wildflower Villas as a retreat built around the forest. “As a child, I spent time walking through these trees with my grandfather, a vaidh who would forage for medicinal herbs here, guided by an instinctive belief that the forest itself had healing properties,” reminisces Amol. The family’s relationship with this piece of land goes back several generations. Amol’s great-grandfather was also a vaidh, a traditional Ayurvedic practitioner, who used the estate to forage the medicinal herbs and plants his practice depended on. Records of this connection go back to the early 1900s, and the family’s living, working relationship with the land predates the current generation by several lifetimes. The family’s connection with the land goes back to the early 1900s. “That understanding stayed with the family,” Amol says. “This was never just land for us. It was something we had inherited, and something we felt responsible for protecting.” Years later, when construction began to change the landscape around them, that sense of responsibility became the starting point for what would eventually become Wildflower Villas. Amol, a restoration specialist deeply involved in heritage architecture, had seen enough old homes disappear to know how quickly a place could lose its character. Construction began with the rule that no existing tree on the property would be cut. “I was disheartened by the pace at which Goa was being built over,” he tells me. “Everywhere you looked, hills were being cut, trees were being cleared, and the same kind of buildings were coming up. I knew that if we ever built anything here, it had to be different.” The rule he set for himself was simple, but uncompromising. “Not a single tree would be cut,” he says. “If that meant we could build only a few villas, then that’s all we would build. The forest had to stay exactly as it was.” The outdoor areas were planned to keep the forest cover as the main setting. That decision shaped everything that followed. The built-up area was mapped with the trees as the fixed points. The villas had to work around the forest, and not the other way around. Only shrubs were cleared. The trees stayed. Each villa was designed around the existing tree cover and the natural topography of the estate. No earth-moving machinery was used anywhere on the property, except for the pool. Boulders from the hillside were left where they were and absorbed into the aesthetic of certain villas. In some places, laterite stone from the hillside itself became part of the buildings. Local materials and traditional techniques were used throughout. Local materials and traditional building techniques were used across the property. The trees, meanwhile, have continued to grow. Some have even pushed through rooflines over the years, leaving the family with repairs to make, but also with a reminder of the promise they made at the very beginning. “Sustainability was never something we added later,” Amol says. “It was the starting point. The idea was always to build around what existed, not to change the land to suit us.” Construction ran from 2009 to 2010, and the first guest was welcomed in January 2011. Today, walking through the property, it is hard to tell where the forest ends and the retreat begins, which, I realised, is exactly how Amol wanted it. The first guest was welcomed in January 2011 after construction finished in 2010. A stay rooted in the same soil Some families pass down their property, but the Navelkars passed down a way of belonging to it. Today, Wildflower Villas is run by Amol’s son, Nishad, and his wife, Richa Sharma Navelkar, who live on the property year-round and carry the family’s vision forward with the same conviction. Nishad joined operations in May 2012 after completing his studies. He and Richa married in December 2016, and Richa joined the property in 2017. The transition from Amol’s founding stewardship to Nishad and Richa’s day-to-day management has been gradual and organic. It is now their project entirely, with Amol’s vision as the foundation. Nishad and Richa live on the property and manage Wildflower Villas year-round. “We didn’t inherit just a piece of land,” Nishad tells me. “We inherited a way of thinking about it. For us, living here isn’t separate from running this place.” The result is a stay that feels nothing like a hotel, and everything like a home that happens to have guests. Spread across eight acres of forested land are seven villas, each named after a wildflower and each carrying a distinct personality. Of the eight acres, the entire built-up area, including every villa, utility structure and the pool, maps to about one acre. The remaining seven acres are living forest, untouched and unmanicured. That leaves the property with a development footprint of roughly 12 percent on land where, by conventional hospitality standards, much more could have been built. Each of the seven villas is named after a wildflower and designed differently. (Periwinkle, Primrose, Red Poppy) The forest here is protected through family choice rather than statutory designation. The land carries permissions that would allow significant construction on a comparable parcel in this part of North Goa. A developer could have built a resort of 130 keys or more, but Amol chose restraint. No additional construction is planned, and the family’s position is clear: the forest stays. “Every villa came together slowly,” says Nishad. “Nothing was ordered from a catalogue. The furniture, the tiles, the artwork, each piece has a story. A lot of it came from old Goan homes, brought here because it belonged somewhere that understood it.” The villas use vintage Goan furniture, local craft and handmade regional tiles. Step inside any of the seven villas and the first thing you notice is that nothing here was assembled in a hurry. Vintage Portuguese-Goan pieces fill the rooms, sourced from estate sales and antique dealers across Goa. Alongside them sit pieces made by local Goan craftsmen using traditional techniques, custom-built for each villa with the kind of considered detail that mass-produced furniture cannot replicate. Handmade tiles by regional craftsmen line the floors, while local artworks adorn the walls. There is nothing here that feels placed to impress. And then there are the ceilings. Standing inside the villa on my first afternoon, I looked up and understood immediately that something structural was doing work that no machine was being asked to do. High ceilings and laterite walls help the rooms stay cooler without constant AC use. “Our ceilings are 17 to 18 feet high with 23-centimetre laterite walls. This is traditional architecture, and it keeps the rooms 3 to 4 degrees Celsius cooler than ambient Goa temperatures, even without air conditioning running constantly,” Amol explains. And the forest helps. “The first thing most guests notice when they arrive is the air,” Richa says. “It’s clean in a way that’s hard to describe. The forest just does that.” Laterite walls and traditional layouts are part of the property’s cooling approach. The best place to feel this is the balcão, the wide, roofed wraparound veranda that each villa opens onto, keeping direct sunlight away from the room. It was my favourite perch in the early mornings and late evenings. Every day I would sit there listening to birdsong as I sipped my coffee, and I realised I had not sat still like this in a very long time. Each villa has a roofed balcão that keeps direct sunlight away from the room. The food here has roots too That sense of belonging to the land carries into the kitchen as well. At Wildflower Villas, the food is shaped by memory, season, and what grows around the property. The meals here reflect the Saraswat culinary heritage of the Navelkar family, along with dishes that have found a place on the table over time. The meals served here draw from the Navelkar family’s Saraswat culinary heritage. “We don’t think of the food here as restaurant food,” Richa tells me. “It’s the kind of food we would cook for ourselves at home. What we serve guests is exactly what we would eat.” Estate produce is central to the kitchen. The property grows coconuts extensively, which go directly into the cuisine and are also sent for cold-pressing into the estate’s own organic coconut oil. Cashews feed the seasonal menu. So do mangoes, pineapples, love apples, bimbli, kokum, star fruit and jackfruit when the season allows. Vegetables grown regularly include tomatoes, cucumbers, local Goan red spinach and breadfruit. The herb and spice garden has pepper, trifala, turmeric, basil and more. Estate-grown coconuts, cashews, fruits, herbs and vegetables support the kitchen. Everything grown on the estate goes directly into the kitchen. What the land does not produce is sourced from vendors the family has worked with for years. I saw this most clearly one afternoon when Amol showed me how to cook some Saraswat delicacies. Cooking, I learnt, is something he enjoys as much as working with old buildings, and now and then he dabbles in the kitchen, making the most delicious Goan dishes. Guests can join cooking sessions centred on Saraswat family recipes. That afternoon, it was Chicken Xacuti, a dry prawn dish whose name I never caught but whose flavour I have not forgotten, and a simple pumpkin sabzi, all cooked the way they have been made in this family for generations. “Food here has to feel like it belongs to the place,” Amol says as we cook. “If it doesn’t feel like something we would make for ourselves, then it doesn’t belong on the table.” The meal that followed was one of the best I had in Goa, served with warmth that felt unhurried and deeply personal. The menu includes Goan dishes cooked with family recipes and estate produce. Experiences that stay close to the land At Wildflower Villas, the experiences offered to guests are designed to bring them closer to the Goa that existed long before tourism reshaped it. The family organises experiences on the estate, including backwater boat rides from the villa, birding, foraging walks through the property paired with cooking sessions, cocktail-making, bar-hopping with Nishad and Richa, and palm-leaf weaving demonstrations. Guests can take backwater boat rides arranged from the villa. Experiences that take guests beyond the estate, such as heritage walks, cultural trails and explorations of the wider Goan hinterland, are conducted in partnership with Soul Travelling, an experiential travel collective that curates immersive explorations of Goa’s old neighbourhoods and traditions. Through them, guests can join village walks, heritage trails, Mapusa market visits, and even traditional poi bread-making sessions, each designed to show a side of Goa that still exists beyond the beach belt. These are introductions to a way of life. Heritage walks and cultural trails take guests beyond the North Goa beach belt. Back at the property, the experiences become even more personal. One morning, Amol himself took me on a slow walk through the forested estate, stopping to show me old trees that have been around for over 100 years, as well as fruit trees and plants he has collected from various places. He spoke about the forest the way one speaks about an old friend, with the affection that comes only from having grown up with it. Some afternoons, a local artisan comes to the property to demonstrate traditional palm-leaf weaving. On other days, guests gather in the kitchen for cooking sessions focused on Saraswat family recipes, with Amol often stepping in to share some tips and secrets. There are also estate-foraged cocktail sessions using ingredients like curry leaves and triphal, yoga classes under the trees, and long stretches of time when nothing at all is planned. Estate-foraged ingredients are used in cocktail sessions at the property. In fact, the family believes that unstructured time is as important as any activity. “We’ve forgotten how to do nothing,” Richa says. “Here, there’s no programme, no itinerary, just forest, space, and unstructured time. Everyone talks about sleep tourism now, but Goans have always known that afternoons are meant for rest. Susegad isn’t new. It’s just forgotten everywhere else.” The stay is planned around open time, rest and the natural rhythm of the estate. “Guests tell us they look at their phones less when they’re here,” Nishad adds. “The forest teaches what cities forgot, not every moment needs purpose. Digital detox retreats try to program disconnection. Here, it just happens. Afternoons are for sitting under trees doing nothing. That’s not a wellness practice. That’s just a way of life.” The property’s sustainability practices follow the same instinct. Its water needs are met primarily through groundwater resources on the estate, supplemented during Goa’s monsoon by rainwater harvesting pits. Water is recycled and channelled back into the estate gardens, closing the loop instead of letting it run off. Water use on the estate is supported by groundwater and monsoon rainwater harvesting. Kitchen waste, dried leaves and organic matter from the grounds go into composting and return to the estate as manure. The forest and gardens feed the kitchen, and the kitchen feeds the forest back. Waste that cannot be composted is segregated on the property and handed over regularly to the nearest waste treatment plant. Solar power runs the public utility and garden areas. The property has largely moved away from single-use plastic in amenities, bottles and guest-facing materials. About 30 percent of the current staff strength is locally hired, a number the family acknowledges they would like to improve. I found myself slipping into that rhythm without trying. One afternoon, I realised I had been sitting on the balcão for nearly an hour, watching the light shift through the trees, with no desire to do something else. As I continued my susegad time, it felt clear that what the Navelkars have created here is a stay, a family home, and a living argument for a gentler way of building in Goa. In a place often asked to reinvent itself for visitors, Wildflower Villas holds on to something older: a forest, a way of life, and the belief that indulgence can begin with leaving the land alone.
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