Neeralaya

The idea of Neeralaya, located near Kullu, Manali dates back to our childhood! We frequented this spot for picnics. While the more serious amongst us caught fish with our hands from a stream that still flows through the property, the rest of us swam, made sand castles, trapped butterflies and simply had a date with nature! Even as we grew older our love for this spot never diminished. When our cousins/friends came visiting, our parents had a tough time getting us to come back home. Our initial plan was to make a tented camp on this site in order not to disturb the natural surroundings that we as children were blessed to experience. However with changing times, the need to save some semblance of our hill architectural heritage was given precedence over the original idea! Since the late 1990s, timber has become unaffordable by many due to the suspension of timber felling rights of the people by the state to save the forests of Himachal. This led the majority of the people that wanted to expand their old homes, first razing to ground their traditional homes and then replacing them with the much more economically viable concrete structures. This quite understandably was totally out of sync with the local environment. Our quest to save some examples of the old Western-Himalayan timber-bonded architectural marvels is what made us lay to rest our original plan. Our villas at Neeralaya are a tiny, tiny step in that direction. We acquired two such homes before they were demolished and used all the material (timber, stones and slates) and built our villas to make available to our guests top quality modern day comforts, a little retreat to savor the age old techniques of house building in the Western Himalayas. In a nutshell, Neeralaya is about our villas, built in old recycled timber, stone and slates sourced locally. Located on the banks of the river Beas, surrounded by forest and orchards on the other two sides, Neeralaya is completely isolated from the crowds that make a beeline for the hills to escape the summer heat. Food at the villas is freshly cooked home style with fresh vegetables from our farm, free range poultry and fresh trout from the river. Plenty of outdoor activities are available from the villas: mountain bikes, river rafting, day return hikes and guided tours to the local temples and villages. We also take great pride in organizing some of the best picnics that are there to be organized in the valley. We sincerely hope that our guests will appreciate and enjoy our painstakingly built villas surrounded by natures bounty of forest, river and mountains. Our endeavor for those visiting Neeralaya will always be, to make you never want to leave!