Step Inside the Delhi Home of an Indian Princess

In a leafy 1950s neighborhood of garden bungalows set in symmetrical squares adjoining the Delhi zoo, the home of Priti Pratap Singh, Princess of the erstwhile kingdom of Kuchaman, retains its original whitewashed form. But inside its creaky iron gate is a realm of fantasy, a visionary creation of the unfamiliar housed in a rather expected-looking shell. When she first inherited the house as a young mother in the 1970s, she deemed the conventional front lawn “too boring” and set about ripping it apart to transform it into an artful magic wilderness.

A benign granite sculpture of Nandi, the bull vahana of the Hindu god Shiva, sits center stage. It’s situated between red sandstone paving and parterres of luxuriant foliage, which are bisected by a narrow channel where water bubbles from stone spheres. The veranda is shaded by a vine-laden bamboo scaffolding, made more dense thanks to grape clusters. With the sound and sight of the city blotted, one could be anywhere—a corner of Tuscany, perhaps, or a secluded garden—except in the heart of a teeming metropolis.

The interiors, with their soaring 16-foot-high ceilings, effortlessly intensify the theme and panoply of royal Rajasthan, the Indian state where she spent time as a student. The region is showcased most notably in a dazzling display of antique textiles—an embroidered covering for an elephant’s howdah on one wall, a fine block-printed kalamkari on another, and a painted Nathdwara pichwai above the fireplace. Amid the gleaming brass and silver are elaborate embellishments of Priti’s own handiwork: A corner of the living room is converted into a tented baithak (lounge area) in saffron silk framed in carved architraves from haveli doors and, in her bedroom, plain cupboards are covered in crewel-embroidered aqua silk.

This is a house of memories, or as she evocatively puts it, “memories interwoven with history.” Emblems of personal history, family history, and work history— for her living room doubles as a showroom for her famous quilts—form a rich tapestry, from sepia photographs of age-old courtly ceremonials to modernist portraits gifted to her by Cuba’s leading artist René Portocarrero, when she lived there.

Priti Singh’s home is a palimpsest of her varied life. Her father was an Oxford-educated ruler of Kuchaman, a town situated between Jaipur and Jodhpur, known for its imposing 16th-century fort and frescoed palace—“one of those rare places,” writes the historian Mitchell Crites, “where if you close your eyes and listen, you can still conjure up the unabashed pleasures of a royal court.” Her mother came from a family of feudal talukdars near Lucknow. Educated in Jaipur and Lucknow, Priti imbibed the stylized confluence of two vanishing worlds. Later she married a Goan politician who was an ambassador to Havana.

Among her abiding recollections of living in Kuchaman are the quilts her mother had remade each year, and lined in sumptuous satin. “I vividly remember yards of newly dyed bandhani and leheriya fabrics laid out to dry on terraces.” Decades later, in 1989, in an effort to support out-of-work village artisans, she revived the intricate art of quilting by setting up a tiny workshop in a thatch-roofed shed in her garden.

Ever since, her cottage industry, sold under the Kuchaman Fort label, has flourished. These brilliantly hued bed-warmers, patched with cotton, silk, linen, mashru, and wool fabrics, and sourced in the bazaars of Rajasthan and the inner lanes of Delhi, have found a steady, discerning clientele at home and overseas. Politician Vasundhara Raje; interior designer Adil Ahmad; New York photographer Robert Polidori; and international figures such as Vera Santo Domingo and members of the Italian publishing Mondadori family are all fans and collectors of these one-off textile treasures. At an exhibition in a high-end boutique in Rome some years ago, her collection sold out before the show even opened. As her custom output has grown so too has her line (she now creates made-to-order monogrammed table linen and guest towels as well).

Become a Member

Get the essentials to grow a sustainable business at our member-only event.

Priti Singh’s drawing room is also her show room. Out of two tall glass-fronted cupboards of her own design spill forth her kaleidoscopic wares. Wall hangings, fragments of statuary, art books, and memorabilia permeated with the scent of summer lilies, tuberoses, and greenery from her lovingly tended garden cannot help but catch the eye of any visitor. Whimsical personal touches abound: for example, near the fireplace is a poignantly framed pair of woven red gloves that were presented to her by her father for childhood riding lessons.

Over the years she has amended the three-bedroom flat on the ground floor that she shares with her two daughters—one runs a healthcare nonprofit, the other is a lawyer—to suit modern living without compromising the period architectural features of the structure. “The cavernous rooms were gloomy and the layout impractical. I converted the old kitchen into a dining room, relocating the new kitchen behind the living room. I also punched in skylights, and mirrored redundant doors, to create light and space.”

She is a natural raconteur, with a spirited humor that is at once candid and infectious. When prospective customers visit, Priti Singh says she has fun mentally deciding what they will choose. She’s often right. And when they ask about the house and its glittering contents, her storytelling starts. Not surprisingly, few leave empty-handed.

This alcove in the living room was converted into a baithak (lounge area) with a tented canopy in saffron silk. The wooden arch was acquired from a Gujarati dealer on the Delhi-Jaipur highway. Displayed on the Gujarati storage chest is a 1930s photograph of her mother in a silver frame.

In the living room, a large mirror framed by embroidered fabric blocks a redundant doorway. It is flanked by family portraits of forebears on one side and paintings of Rajasthani ascetics on the other. A rich kalamkari textile behind glass adorns another wall.

The entrance to the dining room from the living room is framed by a wooden archway. Above the bar, which is made from carved Gujarati woodwork, are antique brocade textiles preserved behind glass.

The narrow dining room was formerly the kitchen. Singh punched clerestory windows into the wall and mirrored a redundant door to create space and light. The carved cabinet at the far end is from Mumbai. The chairs are from Goa. A large Pabuji ki Phad painting from Rajasthan covers one wall.

Above the fireplace in Priti Pratap Singh’s living room hangs an antique pichhwai. On either side are french crystal sconces that were found in a flea market in London. The fireplace was hand-colored with terracotta powder and varnished. A framed pair of silk woven gloves presented by her father for riding lessons is a treasured keepsake. One of her quilts drapes a sofa chair. The tall glass cupboard with green blinds contains her collection of quilts.

The glass-fronted cupboard in the living room is stacked with Singh’s quilts for customers.

A finely carved sandstone jharokha from a Jodhpur bazaar is the centerpiece of the sandstone-flagged terrace. The stone images of Ganesh in the foreground are Himalayan.

In the narrow entrance hallway, a wooden sculpture of Hanuman, gifted by a friend, stands on an Art Deco chest of drawers. The deep red ochre color of the walls was inspired by the kesariya (saffron) pigment of Rajasthani miniatures.

In a guest room, Singh designed the canopy for an old single bed found in Goa. Framed on a wall is a precious sequined embroidery on a net odhni (veil) that belonged to her mother. She covered the plain painted cupboards with embroidery on aqua silk in the crewel style.

In Singh’s bedroom, a framed piece of antique brocade from Varanasi hangs above the bed resting on carved metal legs found in old Delhi. The bed is laid with cushions and quilts of her own design.

An old jamdani silk is hung above the Belgian dressing table in Singh’s bedroom. On the left is an etching by Vivan Sundaram—a glass painting of a woman with a musical instrument.

An old storage cupboard in the veranda was lined with printed satin. The bench designed by Herbert Baker, Edwin Lutyens’s co-architect in New Delhi, was found in a junk shop. Priti Singh painted the wooden screen in turquoise.

A dramatic bathroom in black and white marble features a Belgian crystal mirror above a washbasin by Singh’s interior designer friend Adil Ahmad.

This bathroom is embellished with copies of Mughal textiles.

This story was first published by AD India.

More Great Stories From AD