10 incredible Indian homes loved by AD editors in 2025

From a 138-year-old home in Hyderabad, where artist Raja Ravi Varma once stayed, to a maximalist rental in Dehradhun, here are some of the most layered Indian homes featured in AD in 2025.

Architect Samira Rathod’s Mumbai Home

The minimal lines of the furniture and the glass table lamp, designed by SRDA, complement the muted prints of the West Elm rug and the speckled side table from Tranceforme.

The glassy 44th-floor residence of architect Samira Rathod, in a high-rise located in the heart of South Mumbai, is open on three sides—with large balconies facing the Arabian Sea, the eastern dockyard, and the iconic Haji Ali mausoleum ensconced on an islet. “I wake up at five, so I have enough time to sit on the veranda and enjoy the morning light and breeze,” says Rathod. The unfolding dawn becomes her sacred hour, a time to sit back and think of the mundane and the profound. On some mornings, she lounges on the couch on her veranda honing ideas for her various projects at Samira Rathod Design Atelier. Some days, she wakes up and ponders over how to add a new twist to an old object at home. Rathod is a fierce advocate of recycling; her home has an abundance of things that have gained new contours, textures, and consequent longevity through the many years that they have been in her possession—thanks to makeovers executed in her own design studio.

The vibrant motifs of a cushion bought from Africa counter the vibes of the wooden face sculpture sourced from Kochi, the centre table designed by Big Piano, a brass-topped lamp from Chor Bazaar, and artworks by Soghra Khurasani.

The study area has an assortment of hand prototypes, sourced from Chor Bazaar, a chair from Bosnia, and paintings by Shivani Gupta.

There are side tables made from cane baskets; Bhutanese shawls used as screens in her bedroom; and old dining tables turned into new work desks affixed with a fresh set of legs. “A lot of these objects were collected over a long period of time, so in a sense they are things that I have grown up with. I have never been able to part with the old when the new came in,” says Rathod. “The idea of discarding is contrary to the idea of collecting, and to me these objects are all about collecting memories. I can’t imagine being in a home without them.”

Original text by Rajashree Balaram.

Jay Mehta’s Ancestral Home In Porbandar

The entrance sweeps into a porte-cochère, up the steps to a porch and past wide verandas into an octagonal Italian-marble-floor lobby. Notice the double-ventilation features to channel the sea breezes and the “ghummat” room on top with the Arya Samaj Swastika that inspires the house name.

Sunlight streams through the windows, highlighting a beautiful carved bed imported from East Africa. The ceiling-suspended wooden frame is used for mosquito nets at bedtime.

Jay Mehta welcomes us into his ancestral home in Porbandar, Gujarat, built in the 1920s by his grandfather, the late Nanji Kalidas Mehta, in an austere art deco style. Named Swastik Bhavan, the home embraced typical 1920s and 1930s modernism, and is a unique blend of the adaptive needs of a traditional yet modern global family of the time and their requirements. Set in generous landscaped gardens, the double-storeyed home is made of limestone from the nearby Adityana quarry and boasts Italian marble floors, Japanese tiles, frosted art deco glass chandeliers from Europe and furniture from Africa. The home is wrapped around a roughly triangular courtyard, somewhat unusual in the Indian context, but it was here that the owners performed fire rituals, and in the long summer afternoons, the children played hopscotch.