Palace with a thatched roof on Chilika

If Snodgrass’s extravagance set a tone, subsequent owners gave Rambha political consequence. Lord Curzon stayed; Madhusudan Das spoke here; Harihar and Rama Chandra Mardaraj turned the premises into a gathering ground for Utkal Sammilani’s push toward unification. The palace would see princes, prime ministers and national leaders pass through its gardens until well into the 20th century, leaving behind a ledger of signatures and speeches that still gives the corridors their curious sense of expectancy.

A QUIET REVIVAL

And then, silence. For decades the building stood tired and damp, its laterite walls soaked by monsoon, its rooflines compromised by ad-hoc tin sheets. “The roofs didn’t exist in any meaningful way,” Channa told me. “We began by taking them off, letting the building dry.” An INTACH report guided the conservation priorities; cement was discouraged on old laterite, breathability became non-negotiable. Bathrooms had to be imagined from scratch; a service wing (once a generator and ice mill) would be reworked into Suites. A new approach along the long axis heightened arrival; a grand staircase and French-inspired gardens clarified procession and pause.

The revived Rambha opened to guests on Utkal Divas (April 1, 2024) after a six-year restoration led by Channa Daswatte and backed by Hunch Ventures, with Hidden India managing operations. The brief was conspicuously conservative: minimal structural change, no plastic emulsions, and materials that let the building breathe. Venetian lime plaster (its exact ratios closely guarded by Sundarbans artisans) was finished with beeswax for a soft, old-world lustre. Original timber was salvaged, and the century-old, three-dimensional terrazzo floors were restored in situ, one room at a time.

THE THATCHED CROWN

What gives Rambha its cultural intelligence is an architectural choice that seems almost subversive for a palace: a thatched roof. While it may not be palatial in reference, it makes perfect climatic sense.
In a land of cyclones, you design roofs that can be swiftly remade rather than lethally weaponised by wind. Channa points to Sri Lankan royal houses with thatch, to the agrarian pragmatism of coastal Odisha; grandeur sits on a knowingly impermanent hat. The result is a classical facade and plan with Roman arches, Doric columns, axial gardens — capped by an element that concedes to weather and time.

NOT A MUSEUM

Inside, the past is legible without being museum-stiff. The Piano Room (once the durbar) now anchors arrival; twin staircases climb theatrically on either side. Floors in multicolour terrazzo tilt with subtle optical depth; walls glow in lime-washed pinks and terracottas. You read craft everywhere — Dhokra metal, Odia ikat and Kotpad textiles layered into furniture and soft furnishings. Even the reimagined suites remember their origins: Orchard Suites in the former service wing; Royal Suites flanking the Piano Room where king and queen once retired. Depending on whom you ask and how you count the presidential villa, Rambha offers fourteen suites plus a villa, or sixteen in total; either way, it sits comfortably on five or six acres of orchard and lawn without crowding its own views.

CEYLON AND KALINGA’S SHARED HISTORY

For Channa, Odisha and Sri Lanka share more than a climate playbook; they also share an old, braided history of Kalinga voyages, matrimonial alliances, a Vaishnavite continuum. The house looks East and looks home at once. Some speculations endure pleasantly. Channa believes certain ceremonial elements—one staircase, perhaps a bolder forecourt — were added later, likely in anticipation of a gubernatorial or viceroyal visit. He reworked the entrance on the long axis to sharpen the experience of approach, not merely to mimic colonial “grandeur” but to heighten the choreography between garden, portico and Piano Room. Your feet read the story first—the terrazzo underfoot, then the twin climbs, then the cool of lime and beeswax — before your mind catches up. The French-style parterres and axial lawns do their own quiet Versailles impression toward the lake.

That Rambha is now a boutique hotel is less a capitulation to tourism than a pragmatic conservation strategy. Without occupation, buildings die. With careful occupation, they remember. On a good afternoon the palace holds both its histories well, the overreach of an East India Company official, the debates that shaped a state, the cyclone grammar of a thatched crown, the local crafts glowing in low light, the bird-swept horizon of the lagoon beyond the trees. It is, at last, a house made liveable again — by restraint as much as repair.

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