Print exclusive: Grace Kelly

Inside an artful yet gracefully restrained home in Mumbai by Kumpal Vaid

04 Sep 2025

The swing came first. Not the soft oak ceilings, or the milky, marbled walls — but the swing, steady as memory. Classic in silhouette but softly reimagined, it was the family’s one non-negotiable. “It wasn’t just requested, it was demanded,” recounts Kumpal Vaid with a smile. As founder of the Mumbai-based design practice Purple Backyard, she was entrusted with shaping a new home for a three-generation Gujarati family in Mumbai — a project rooted not in reinvention, but in gentle return. “The swing was our perfect ‘something old’. The one thing that made the new space instantly feel like theirs.”

Set in the city’s culturally rich enclave with tree-speckled streets, where roots run deep and loyalties deeper — the 4,000 sq ft apartment stands just a few turns from the family’s former address. “They didn’t want transformation. They wanted an elegant retelling of their life like a love story,” reflects Kumpal. Her task was clear: to design with tenderness, not bravado. To fold memory into every corner, while letting the light in. “They described their vision as measured grace. Not minimalist, not maximalist. Just… considered.” If the brief was emotionally complex, the palette was unequivocally calm. Light oak, lime-washed walls, whispering veils of raw cotton, and pyrite-speckled stone form a restrained composition that speaks volumes in tone-on-tone poetry.

“They didn’t want transformation. They wanted an elegant retelling of their life like a love story. They described their vision as measured grace. Not minimalist, not maximalist. Just… considered”

Kumpal Vaid, Purple Backyard

“We wanted the home to breathe. To feel held, but never hemmed in,” Kumpal explains. Handcrafted German silver elements and accents, burnished marble, and silk-washed murals—painted by hand to catch the afternoon light—create quiet moments of drama. A meditation niche, clad in stone and tucked into the living room, was imagined as a garden without the foliage. One that is still, grounded and spiritually open.

If there is a guiding muse to this home, it is Grace Kelly, but not for the reasons one might assume. “It wasn’t about glamour,” Kumpal clarifies. “It was her quiet conviction. The elegance that wasn’t performed but embodied. That’s the energy we channelled here. Restraint with richness, softness with structure.” Designed for a family of six, the couple, their two children, and the husband’s parents, the apartment is spatially democratic, yet emotionally zoned.

Gathered like pavilions around a soft axis, each bedroom is enveloped in a tactile language of texture and light. However, the master suite, with its jewellery den tucked behind a pearly arch, feels like a modern heirloom box — fluid, feminine, and just shy of precious; and the children’s suite eschews tropes in favour of timelessness. Treated as contemplative retreats, the bathrooms across the home are lit softly and detailed with inlay and art.

In the foyer, the distinctive trio of a raw-edged table and an undulating console (both by The Rocking Chair Co) and a whimsical cloud-like chandelier by IKEA set the tone for the home’s layered design story; Photography by Ishita Sitwala

The Pyrite tea coffee station from Bellicosa is decorated with a custom lamp from Mother Gone Mad; Photography by Ishita Sitwala

But it is in the quieter gestures that the house comes into its own. A set of old dining chairs — deeply loved, and worn with time — were restored and reimagined, their design gently retuned to suit the new home’s rhythm. “We preserved their sentiment,” Kumpal explains, “but gave them a refreshed form. That’s what this project was about — emotional continuity.” She also points to the light, both natural and artificial, which was orchestrated with intent—not to dazzle but to cast a quiet glow. Asked what she hopes this home gives its inhabitants, Kumpal pauses, then responds: “I hope it continues to hold them — through celebration and chaos, growth and stillness.” For her, the secret to quiet luxury lies in the edit. “Start with clarity. Listen to each corner; then distill, subtract, and refine — but with meaning. Elegance isn’t in what you embrace, but in what you choose to leave out.”

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