Standing discreetly in Gujarat’s historic town of Bhuj is a five-room homestay that feels less like a getaway and more like a gentle act of time travel. The Bhuj House, originally built in 1894 by Pestonji Sorabji Bhujwala, is not your typical boutique stay; it’s a living archive of Parsi heritage, lovingly restored by Jehan Bhujwala and his wife Katie.Step through its doors, at first, everything feels quietly unassuming—just another old home in a dusty corner of Gujarat. But let your eyes linger, and the details begin to speak. The soft glint of old Parsi art, the hand-embroidered textiles, the restrained elegance of the decor, and that arched terrace; suddenly the house unfolds like a memory you didn’t know you had. Originally built in 1894 by Pestonji Sorabji Bhujwala, Bhuj House carries more than a century of stories in its walls. It’s one of the rare few houses that survived the Parsi migration of the 1960s and the tremors of the 2001 Bhuj earthquake.
“Our family, the Bhujwalas, were among the few who never let go,” shares Jehan Bhujwala, who, alongside his wife Katie, brought life back into the house in 2015. “As we stripped away the years, we weren’t just restoring walls, we were rediscovering Pestonji Sorabji’s legacy, a man who lived to serve his community.” The Bhuj House is a quiet immersion into history, heritage, and the enduring spirit of a family that never left.
Pestonji Sorabji, their first ancestor to arrive at Bhuj, adopted the name ‘Bhujwala’. Instrumental in bringing relief during the Mandvi plague in 1897-8, Pestonji also constructed Kutch’s only Parsi Agiary. “Most of the traditional Parsi houses in Bhuj had been sold off by the owners who migrated to places like Bombay. But my father-in-law suggested that we restore it,” says Katie adding “We felt we could tap into the niche traveller sector by offering visitors a place with character and history of its own,” she adds.
The traditional Parsi house with European, Hindu and Islamic architectural features has an open courtyard in the centre, with interconnected rooms. Shaded by old trees with a swing and a well—two very traditional features of Parsi architecture—the courtyard houses a pantry and dining area. From here, you can get a glimpse of interiors of the property, the colonial furniture, historical photographs and heirlooms like a gramophone, vintage typewriter, clock, rosewood furniture and an old swing.
However, restoring and renovating the house into a five-room homestay was not easy and took three years to finish. The walls had to be secures and the roof was entirely reconstructed. A bigger challenge was to convince skilled masons and carpenters to work with old materials in order to keep the original Parsi aesthetics intact. The renovation did not only mean restoring the house to its old self. The couple also wanted to honour the house’s evolution over the different generations. “Our caretaker, Abu, who had worked with the family for decades, knew that some of the house’s original carved ‘panipatti’ (eaves boards) had been removed and kept in storage. We were able to reinstate them in the inner courtyard,” she smiles.
The rooms have traditional Parsi-Gujarati names. Bapaiji (grandmother), the old master bedroom has the original canopy-draped rosewood beds of the owner’s late grandparents. Nano is a small room with a double bed. Jaffri is a double-bedded room with a wooden lattice screen and the rooftop room is Agassi. The guests here are treated to authentic Parsi food—from akuri and lemongrass chai for breakfast to Parsi-style chicken farcha, sabzi par eedu, kheema, lagan nu custard for elaborate dinners.
Bhuj House offers grassroot textile and handicraft workshops, in a way that the essence of the house remains the same. But the short tourist season due to the extreme climate in Kutch, makes the hospitality business difficult to sustain. Jehan and Katie are not giving up. They intend continue to preserve a part of Bhuj’s lesser known history that could have easily slipped into oblivion.