Bosubari, in Bagbazar, may get a lease of life as a boutique hotel. A Telegraph picture

Enterprising hoteliers have transformed Rajasthan’s dilapidated castles and havelis into the world’s most sought-after luxury lairs. Calcutta now looks set to follow suit by leveraging its wealth of architectural history.

After NRI businessman Aditya K. Poddar took the first step by adopting Lady Ranu Mookerji’s residence on Ho Chi Minh Sarani for a restoration-cum-makeover into a “boutique heritage hotel”, Ambuja Realty Group is in talks with the current owners of Bosubari, in Bagbazar, for another boutique hotel.

“During my visits to Calcutta, I used to see so many heritage buildings in various stages of decay, and I felt these constituted the actual identity of the city,” Poddar, the chairman of Singapore-based Wellside International Pte Ltd, tells Metro.

He feels the magnificent manors and rich colonial architecture of Calcutta hold out great tourism potential, if packaged to international standards. “The Fullerton Hotel in Singapore, which was a government building (of 1928 vintage), is now one of the world’s finest heritage hotels. We are not only building a hotel, but conserving history in a self-sustainable model.”

Harsh Neotia, the chairman of Ambuja Realty Development Ltd, agrees with Poddar that this is one way of sharing the richness of the past.

“Tourists are interested in finding out how a city has evolved and they can relive history through these wonderful monuments,” says Neotia.

Any makeover without adaptive reuse is meaningless, and there are enough edifices steeped in history in Bengal, which could drive the heritage hotel trend, feels Neotia.

Such adaptive reuse should be determined only after a careful study of the building’s characteristics, says conservation architect Manish Chakrabarti. “Every structure has some uniqueness and will let you know what its compatible functions could be. For instance, a house with large halls can be reused as a museum or art gallery. Again, warehouses have larger spans, offering uninterrupted interior spaces.”

Anindya Karforma, on the heritage panel of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, says: “We welcome any initiative to convert old, idle structures into buildings of meaningful reuse, provided proper care is taken to understand its past and the restoration is carried out in a sensitive manner.”