On a wind-cut ridge in the Tamil Nadu’s Palani Hills, 79-year-old Isla Van Damme has built a life that resists neat definitions. Isla’s Ridge welcomes guests, but is not a hotel. Food grows here, but it’s not quite a farm. Every object carries a memory, but it’s not entirely a private home. It is, instead, a place shaped by instinct, contradiction, and a long habit of ignoring what is supposed to work. “I don’t do it the easy way,” she smiles.
Born in Kodaikanal in 1945 but a Belgian citizen, Isla’s life moved across continents. India, for her, was never a departure, but only a return deferred.
In 1999, when she arrived in Goa, Morjim was largely an empty coastline. “There was nothing there,” she says. She built a beach house, and then a restaurant. When rampant construction began closing in around her, she moved inland, to build a larger home with a four-room guesthouse, Panchavati, which she ran successfully for nearly a decade.
Later in 2016, the shift to the Palani Hills came thanks to what she describes simply as instinct—while working on restoration of a wooden palace in Rajakkad. “I didn’t even want to come,” she says. “I had too much work.” During a walk, something shifted. “I said, this is where I want to live.” She acquired the 40-acre heritage coffee and pepper estate in the Palani Hills near Kodaikanal.
“It was just land overrun with lantana. No electricity, no water. Nothing.” What exists now was built slowly, without conventional planning, guided by just accumulation. She calls the aesthetic “masala.” The architecture blends Mughal arches with local techniques; tin roofs lined with terracotta tiles keep interiors cool. Inside, the house is dense with objects gathered over decades—antiques, textiles, paintings, furniture sourced across India and Europe. Much of it came from her earlier life running an interiors business, when she would travel, buy, and store pieces in anticipation of settling in India.
“None of this is commercial. It has all been lived with,” she says. Among them is a 17th-century Pichwai painting, one of several works she considers museum-worthy. Books line the spaces too, forming a quiet, extensive library that hints at her next phase—writing workshops.
Life at Isla’s Ridge resists programming. Guests are offered no itinerary. “When they ask what is there to do, I say absolutely nothing.” Initial restlessness gives way to stillness. People read, walk, sit through long stretches of silence. Even the monsoon brings a different kind of stillness. Food anchors the experience. “Fancy food is for photography,” she laughs. That, to her, is not food. What she offers instead is comfort—shepherd’s pie, aloo paratha, fresh vegetables, cakes, and biscuits. Much of what is served is grown on-site. Almost everything is made from scratch.
What Isla is building is deliberately small: week-long yoga retreats with teachers she trusts, writing workshops shaped by the landscape, gatherings that align with the place rather than disrupt it. “It is for peace,” she says simply.
In an era where hospitality often equates to constant stimulation, Isla’s Ridge offers something rarer—the permission to disengage and do nothing.