Calcutta: Transforming a nearly decrepit piece of heritage structure to a fine luxury hospitality property always comes with disproportionate business risk for a hotelier.
Such risk is amplified if the location is Calcutta, which doesn't enjoy the ecosystem of Rajasthan where dozens of such heritage properties thrive and new ones come up regularly.
But that did not deter Diamond Oberoi and his son Viraj, owners of Elgin Hotels & Resorts, to take over the Fairlawn Hotel on Sudder Street from the British-Armenian Fowler family.
"I will probably pay through my nose. So much work has to be done there to make it a heritage property that exudes luxury," Diamond Oberoi, MD of Elgin Hotels said on Tuesday evening.
"But I'm confident that once we do it up just we have done with the rest our properties in north Bengal and Sikkim, there will not be any dearth of takers."
The new owner is still to make an estimate of the investment but a rough sketch of the rebranded Elgin Fairlawn is already taking shape.
"A lot of study has to go in... what the colour scheme of the property would be and the kind of furniture and artefact that place should have. Everything must blend with the colonial charm that we plan to recreate," Viraj Oberoi said.
The property has not seen significant investment from the erstwhile owners in decades. As a result, Fairlawn lacks several facilities usually associated with luxury hotels.
So, wood polish have given way to cheap paint on furniture and black and white marble floor to regular concrete at various places in the property. All must change, Nimmi Oberoi, Diamond's wife who not only sits on the board of Elgin but also personally takes up supervising work, said.
"Getting the right furniture is a tough job. We have to scan the entire country for it," she said, adding that Elgin does interiors and external consultants are hired for civil and structural work.
A beer bar on the rooftop, a plunge pool, a spa and salon, a private dining space on the first floor among others are in the planning. Fairlawn did not have a liquor licence till now, impacting the business, Fowler family had said on Monday. But the new owners sounded confident of getting one.
The makeshift structure in front of the building will be pulled down to create a garden. The hotel, which fetches around Rs 4,500 a night for bed and breakfast, will remain open during renovation.
Even as Elgin took a lead in creating a niche in Calcutta's hospitality scene, which thrives on banquets and business traffic, at least one more is in the pipeline from the Ambuja Neotia stable.
Harshavardhan Neotia, chairman of Ambuja Neotia Group, said he planned to convert the Basu Bati in Baghbazar, the 134-year-old structure, into a heritage hotel. "There is always risk associated with such projects. More so because it is not Rajasthan where already such properties exist and tourists know about them," Neotia said. "But I felt it was worth taking a chance. Hopefully, it will make business sense one day too."
