A second hand home fits old is gold adage

When you hear the words ‘second hand’, the first thing that comes to mind is that it’s been used and/or owned by someone else before, so how can I buy it? This is, however, not a consideration at all for many looking to buy a resale property rather than a brand new construction. Here the rules change when it comes to a second sale and many actually seek it. Sometimes old homes/properties have been given a new lease of life giving the concept of second hand a twist, when it comes to real estate.

A lot of old properties – palaces and havelis - have been restored around India and converted into hotels. The Neemrana Hotels Group has been at the forefront of this movement and have won awards and appreciation for restoring these defunct and in some cases, decrepit buildings to their former glory and also putting it to good use. The Taj Group and the Oberoi Group of hotels have also been putting the same principle to work for years now - of using princely properties to lure in business. These business houses have taken over larger properties while Neemrana has taken over the smaller ones.

In Kerala, the CGH Earth Group has restored old therawads or family homes for the enjoyment of the contemporary traveller. I’ve stayed at their properties called Coconut Lagoon as well as Brunton Boatyard and the experience was wonderful. They have plucked the essence of rural Kerala by recreating the cottages in the very manner of those you would see if you sail down the backwaters in a houseboat or in a hotel launch. The carved wood furniture and the Corinthian pillars with embellishment near the eaves and at the base, which have been picked up intact in some cases, from some home about to be torn down, and reused on their property.

All this was done with help from the local craftspeople who “were invited to restore the work of their forefathers and create an experience of ecological living that was shot through with the spirit of ancient Malabar”, as their website eloquently and aptly puts it.

Brunton Boatyard, another CGH property is actually a 750 year old boatyard, once owned by a Dutchman called Paul Brunton (hence the name) is located at a prime seafront location. This hotel also has kept a lot of the look-n-feel of a boatyard intact while managing to give visitors a five-star experience to savour.

But there are others who have used old-world homes as a showcase of our heritage - like DakshinaChitra. The concept for DakshinaChitra was created by the green-architect Laurie Baker. Deborah Thiagarajan who founded the Madras Craft Foundation which includes DakshinaChitra said, “The implementation was done by Laurie Baker in the beginning and then by his erstwhile student, Benny Kuriakose."

She adds, "The traditional buildings were constructed by teams of craftspeople from the region, from which they were procured. The costs are difficult to give but a ballpark figure for the entire center, all costs included, would be about Rs 5 - Rs 6 crore at the actual prices - from the days (when it was constructed) between 1991 -1999.”

Another really good example of a heritage property being acquired and used as a home is actor Shahrukh Khan’s sea-facing home, Mannat, which he has had to restore keeping in mind the fact that he has bought a piece of Mumbai’s brick and mortar history.

The actor has not done many interior modifications to the house because he can not tear down walls at will but the interiors - which consists large four-bedrooms - reflects the best that a lot of money can buy – Italian marble, Spanish furniture, the large bathrooms have jacuzzis installed et all. This reputedly cost him in the range of Rs 5-Rs 7.5 crore over and above the cost of acquiring the property. In 2007, this property was valued between Rs 70-Rs 100 crore, according to a real estate website www.indiaproperty.com.

Celina Jaitley is another star who has a quaint 150 years-old bungalow in Moira village in Goa called Casa de Francis Celina. Another celebrity who is said to have acquired a heritage property in Mumbai is cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. He’s only just acquired the property in 2009 and renovation work has yet to begin.

Some wealthy people who are not in the public eye have also restored crumbling old mansions set in their own gardens, which in itself is quite a luxury these days, where every available square feet of space is converted into parking space or space to be rented out for commercial business. So, some family friends of mine who have the Mercedes and Ford dealerships in Pune and the Porsche and Audi one in Mumbai (so can afford to) live in a heritage home in Pune, which once belonged to a Parsi family.

They took pains to rebuild this property keeping in mind the original architecture and décor of the house. So, even though all the art and showpieces that are so painstakingly bought and lovingly arranged around the home belongs to them - the façade, the intricate mosaic tiles, the plaster-of-paris false ceiling and the trellis-work windows have all been kept the same as the original. Everything obviously needed to be spruced up and that cost them quite a lot of pennies! In fact, their architect went to the original source for more of the mosaic tiles because many of them were cracked and chipped and had to be removed. He went all the way to Iran for this! Not surprising since Parsis originate from that country – from a location called Paras in southern Iran, so it’s possible that the original owners had quite a lot of stuff imported to build their home away from home.

Yet another decrepit property that I saw years ago in Pune called the Jeejeebhoy Mansion, was ripe for the picking because it was also a big old house set in a huge garden but I think, it might have been under dispute back then. Such properties are worth crores today and Parsis had the foresight to buy real estate in some plumb locations all across India at a time when such properties were neither valued or hoarded. In Mumbai, they have housing societies in places like Colaba, Dadar, Hughes Road etc which is today prime commercial and residential space with ease of access to schools, hospitals, shopping, recreation and the entertainment district.

Anyway, what real caught my eye when I went to look at the Jeejeebhoy property years ago was the beautiful replica of a Rodin sculpture in marble, of the ‘Wrestler’ also called 'Nude Balzac' because its muse was apparently the French writer Honore Balzac. (The Greeks have an assortment of such sculptures, but I'm assuming this is by Rodin because of it's similarity in form and grace to his more famous 'The Kiss' sculpture.) This abandoned sculpture reflected the despair, over the neglect of what at one time must have been a vibrant and wealthy home. The overgrown garden added to the Neverland-like atmosphere of the place.

It is true that the rest of us can’t hope to step into such expensive homes – heritage or not – but sometimes the saying ‘old is gold’ holds good. In this case, second hand is very uber cool.

QUESTION THE EXPERTS

Here are the most common questions on most people's mind regarding owning an old or heritage home. I asked architect Brinda Gaitonde, who conducts heritage walks around Mumbai with fellow architect Abha Bahl, to clarify these issues. She has experienced the thrill of restoring vintage homes and explains what goes into making them liveable again. To know more about the heritage walks, click here: http://www.bombayheritagewalks.com/index.php

1. Are old homes bought and restored frequently or is the cost so prohibitive that it's not feasible?
A: It is not common for old homes to be bought and restored frequently. Usually they are bought up to be redeveloped and not necessarily for restoration. Yes the actual cost might make it out of reach, plus the added cost of repairs, which most of these old houses need.

2. If done...how much does it cost to do such projects?
A: It varies on the condition of the house, the location etc.

3. How close to the original do you aim to keep the restoration keeping modern utilities etc in mind?
A: Restoring an old house to the original, contrary to popular belief, can offer a lot of flexibility for planning and incorporation of utlitilies. It would require adept organisation and understanding of the construction methodology of the property.

4. Have you had difficulty in sourcing any material to restore such properties?
A: Not really, there is no major difficulty in sourcing information. Sometimes we do run across some problems to source material such as for e.g. encaustic tiles, stained glass etc. But these can be incorporated within modern materials to give a period, and at the same time contemporary look.

5. Have you done any work like this and would you like to share some anecdotes.
A: When I worked with ANL Associates at Botawala building, one of the eight buildings at Horniman Circle (in Mumbai), we wanted to restore some of the replaced modern aluminum sliding windows back to the original. So at a general body meeting an old gentleman came up and said he had managed to salvage some window frames from demolished historic homes. Cannot forget the day that I went to his workshop to see these original frames as I was literally window-shopping! He had about 20 different kind!

A wireless headphone that makes me sing!

Since I've signed up with mGinger - the SMS marketing service - for quite some time now and they usually have offers up on their website, that can be used if you want to redeem any points you have accumulated. 

Recently though, they have taken to sending me e-mailers with deals in them. Like the recent one that I took advantage of - a Mitashi wireless headphone and transmitter for Rs 549 only. I checked out this offer on other sites and everywhere else it was priced much higher.

Even Mitashi's own site was selling it for Rs 699 (marked down from Rs 799), and the lowest price offered was Rs 595 on another site that I scanned while surfing. In comparison, the Sony and Philips ones were over Rs 1,000. When I finally bought it - the price on the box was Rs 775. 

What's more, the online reviews praised the acoustics and so far, I agree with them. I get all the FM stations, and the clarity is great once the signals catch, which they do easily. I've worn this headphone around the house, and even when I'm nowhere near the transmitter, the sound quality remains good.

The quality of the product is great as well - especially the two-tone effect of black and a deep burgundy finish to it. So, if you still think that cheap equals bad quality, then you may have to reconsider that attitude. This headphone makes me sing aloud - and for all the right reasons!

Corp sites should aim for this honour list

Ever wanted to know which corporate websites make the cut? The main criteria is whether it sends across a positive message about the company through the design, construction, functionality built into it, or not. But it's also a lot about attracting the attention of investors, customers, the media and jobseekers - or else why put up a website in the first place?

Bowen Craggs, are UK-based web effectiveness experts - with a classy but a tad spare looking site of their own. They have compiled a list of 75 companies' sites that are worth looking at, from around the globe. Their initial parameter was just taking into consideration the market capitalisation of the firm but they have ranked these sites under other categories as well, such as: site construction, on whether it is serving the media, serving investors, serving jobseekers, serving society, serving customers etc.

For instance: The top sites that improved their construction were BP, Procter & Gamble, Sanofi-Aventis, Royal Dutch Shell, Unilever, Intel, Novartis, WalMart Stores, British American Tobacco and GlaxoSmithKline. (See table below)

The Top 10 sites according to some of the Bowen Craggs metrics


Click on the image to enlarge it

On whether these sites have embraced social media in a big way, this is what the report said: "We classified 22 of the Index’s 75 sites as ‘social media friendly’. IT companies have a natural community of experts, so can easily exploit the social side –see Cisco’s Newsroom for how far that can go. Elsewhere, most companies limit themselves to displays of networking and bookmarking icons plus, perhaps, some Twitter feeds.

Deeper integration of site and social media is concentrated in careers, where Facebook’s demographic makes it a no-brainer. Otherwise, spot Siemens’ brave decision to show how many social media comments have been posted about its home page videos and Walmart Stores’ coverage of social media channels by its search engine. This last may be the most significant sign of all – let’s see if others follow."

So, does your business site send out the right message, and does it reflect well on your skills - social media and otherwise? The sad fact is that, the only Indian site to get on this list is Reliance Industries - and it is dragging along in the bottom five of the list, on all the criteria taken into consideration.

Besides Reliance Industries, there are any number of Indian corporates whose websites could do with a makeover. Read this report to begin to know how to do it right.

Click here for the entire list in detail: http://www.bowencraggs.com/ftindex/indices

Read the full report here: http://bowencraggs.com/downloads/ft/BC_FTIndex_2011_booklet.pdf

Corporate lobbying: To do or not to do?

Corporate lobbying has got so much face-time because of the Niira Radia tapes that people were talking about it on the street, along with the price of vegetables and the ‘Munni’ and ‘Sheila ki Jawani’ item numbers. For the people in the know, it always existed in the shadows, and was never really brought up for public scrutiny. That is the real difference this time around – i.e. the public has caught them at it.

Since the tapes were leaked and uploaded on Outlook’s site and portions of them were transcribed and published in both Outlook and Open magazines, the furore has been about the big names being bandied about, by a non-entity whom no one had heard of in the past. What was meant to be an investigation into her tax evasion affair has turned into a full-blown circus.

Radia calls and talks a lot – to a lot of people. I actually heard three of the tapes and didn’t have the curiosity to listen to the entire lot put up on Outlook’s site. The ones which I heard were – Vir Sanghvi calling her up and actually telling her of how he slanted the tone of one of his columns to suit her convenience.

The other is of Barkha Dutt talking to her about political give-n-take, which Dutt has gone on air at NDTV and defended furiously, by saying that it is part of journalism to follow up on tips but she acknowledged that in hindsight, she should have been more careful of dealing with Niira Radia. She did not answer Open editor, Manu Joseph’s question, to his satisfaction, over why NDTV had not reported the fact that a corporate lobbyist had so many of her fingers in so many pies. All Dutt had to say was that, it was a judgment call made by NDTV, not to do this aspect as a story by itself.

The third tape was of her talking to Ratan Tata, where she goes on and on, while he listens to her and asks her a question here or there. Honestly, everyone should hear this tape and not read it – you get the impression that she really is trying hard to impress and swing deals for her clients. So, why is any of this so surprising? Were we Indians, really so incredulous that we did not know that lobbying happens when huge amounts of money is involved, or favours are required to be done?

The big reason why people have objections to Niira Radia’s profession/tapes, is that the social media ecosphere just exploded over her phone conversations. But these are conversations that could be had by any two people discussing deals and current affairs of the day, with no repercussions, if the conversations were private and both parties are not making use of any information to further an agenda. That is precisely what Radia was doing – pursuing goals – but isn’t that precisely what she was hired to do by Ratan Tata and Mukesh Ambani?

Ironically, this woman has been brought down by hubris, even though she did do her corporate PR-lobbying job very well. She may have assumed that having access to all those big-shots would protect her, when she was evading tax payments, and that was her undoing.

In the process, she has taken everyone else down with her as well. Don’t blame lobbying, which is considered a legitimate way to do business these days in the US, where corporates lobby to put a favoured senator or judge in the right position of power.

Google, RIM and Microsoft, among others, have dedicated lobbyists who espouse their causes in Washington DC. Why else would Hillary Clinton try to sweet-talk to Saudi Arabia and the UAE on behalf of RIM, when these two countries were threatening to ban BlackBerry usage? It was hardly a matter of state, but it was a matter of business interests for sure. After all, politicians are meant to look out for the best interests of their citizens and their country’s corporate enterprises.

India’s first public taste of corporate lobbying has been unseemly to say the least, but now keeping things in some sort of perspective is important. These tapes have made everyone wary, with people like Deepak Parikh, chairman of HDFC, going on record to say that leaking of private conversations has hurt industry morale. Notice that he is not pointing fingers at any of the people involved or even the conversations per se, but just the fact that, one person’s tapped phone entrapped so many others needlessly.

Meanwhile, in a more proactive and sensible manner, Corporate Affairs minister, Salman Khurshid has said on the sidelines of a FICCI seminar ‘Corporate Sustainability and Driver of Innovation’, that the government is looking for a way to regulate corporate lobbying. This is the right way forward, since the cat is anyway out of the bag.

Written for The Viewspaper