Thirty kilometres from Bengaluru’s city centre, a half-acre stone farmhouse assembled from decades of a family’s antique collecting has become one of the most quietly extraordinary places to stay near the city — where every object has a story, every corner has been curated with love, and the people behind it have spent their lives proving that some things stay beautiful forever.
Dhakshini was born, in the words of its own founders, from a half-century-old love story between a traveller and a hoarder. She loved art. He loved collecting all things timeless. Together, Sudha and Chandru opened an antique furniture store on Artillery Road in Bengaluru that specialised in the woodwork of South India — carved doors, ancient pillars, temple furniture, colonial-era pieces gathered from houses and estates across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. The store became an institution. Decades passed. Craftsman families passed their skills to second-generation artisans who still work at Dhakshini today.
Their daughter Preetha Chandrasekaran grew up inside this world. She took it over, brought her own sensibility to it — an electric mix of classic design, traditional artistry, and antique finishes in the modern home — and eventually asked a logical question: what if you could actually sleep inside it?
The answer is Dhakshini Vintage Project.
The Property
The Dhakshini Vintage Project sits on half an acre of land in Rajanukunte, in the Yelahanka area north of Bengaluru, approximately 30 kilometres from the city centre and just 30 minutes from Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport. It is a stone house — built in the vernacular tradition, with the weight and cool of natural stone — and it is furnished entirely with antiques and colonial pieces sourced from the rich heritage of South India. This is not a house that was decorated to look vintage. It is a house assembled from pieces that have earned their character over decades, placed by someone who has spent her entire life learning how objects tell stories.
The result is unlike any other homestay in or around Bengaluru. Walking into the Dhakshini Vintage Project is walking into the Dhakshini store itself — except here you stay, eat, sleep, and live inside the collection. The stone walls, the colonial furniture, the carved wooden doors, the antique artifacts, the carefully curated library of old books — these are not amenities. They are the accommodation.
The expansive lawn and the vintage fountain in the garden add the particular pleasure of outdoor space to the indoor aesthetic. This is a property that makes you want to walk around it slowly, picking up objects, reading the inscriptions, wondering about the hands that made the things you are living among.
The Rooms
There are three bedrooms, each with an ensuite bathroom, and the property accommodates up to seven guests, making it ideal for small families, close friend groups, or creative retreats where the surroundings are as important as the people in the room. The indoor and outdoor dining areas allow meals to shift with the weather and the mood. An on-site cook and housekeeping services ensure a seamless stay — the practicalities are managed so that guests can focus entirely on the experience of being in the space.
Each bedroom carries the antique aesthetic of the wider property: colonial furniture, South Indian craft, objects that have arrived here from different parts of the subcontinent’s history. Modern amenities are present without announcing themselves. The house is managed — carefully, attentively — so that the vintage atmosphere is preserved in every detail.
Eating Here
The cook at Dhakshini Vintage Project prepares meals using fresh, locally sourced ingredients, with the kitchen serving as a backstage operation whose outputs arrive at the dining table as expressions of the property’s broader philosophy: simple, honest, beautifully done. Both the indoor dining room and the outdoor dining area offer different settings for different meals and moods — morning tea by the fountain, dinner under the stars on the lawn, or a quiet lunch inside among the antiques.
What It Is For
Dhakshini Vintage Project describes itself as being designed for intimate getaways, creative retreats, and small events. This is a precise and accurate description. It is not a weekend resort offering activities and packages. It is a space for people who want to be somewhere beautiful — who want the intellectual and aesthetic pleasure of living, for a few days, inside a carefully assembled world of South Indian heritage — and who understand that the best experience a place can offer is sometimes just the experience of being in it.
The property also functions as an intimate venue for small celebrations, gatherings, and events — its character making it perfect for occasions that need a setting more personal and distinctive than a hotel ballroom.
The Store and the World Behind It
Guests who want to understand where Dhakshini Vintage Project comes from — to see the source of its aesthetic philosophy in action — can visit the Dhakshini store on Artillery Road in Ulsoor, Bengaluru, during their stay. The store is the half-century-old antique emporium where Sudha and Chandru began, now continued by Preetha, where South Indian antique furniture — carved doors, pillars, chests, colonial-era pieces of extraordinary craftsmanship — is displayed and available. To see the store is to understand the homestay; to stay at the homestay is to live inside the store’s vision of beauty.
Why It Stays With You
There are properties that offer luxury. There are properties that offer nature. There are properties that offer history. Dhakshini Vintage Project offers something more specific and harder to find: a coherent aesthetic world, assembled over decades by a family that genuinely loves the things it collects, translated into a place where guests can live inside that love for a few nights.
The carved door through which you enter your room was probably a temple door once. The chest at the foot of the bed has been in someone’s house since before anyone alive can remember. The fountain in the garden was found somewhere and brought here because Preetha recognised its quality. This is what the Dhakshini philosophy means in practice — patient, quality-led, imaginative, unhurried. As the store’s own description puts it: a reminder why some things stay beautiful, forever. Touch wood.
Plan Your Visit
Address: Rajanukunte, Yelahanka, Bengaluru North, Karnataka (30 km from city centre, 30 min from airport) Website: dhakshini.in/dvp Instagram: @dhakshini_vintage_project Booking: Via Airbnb (search Dhakshini Vintage Project) or direct enquiry through website
Also visit: Dhakshini Antiques Store — 3/11 Artillery Road, Ulsoor, Bengaluru · Tel: 080-25566550
Founder/Designer: Preetha Chandrasekaran Origins: Dhakshini Antiques, founded by Sudha and Chandru (~35 years old), Artillery Road, Bengaluru
Accommodation: 3 bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms · Sleeps up to 7 guests · Entire property on exclusive use basis Facilities: Indoor and outdoor dining areas · Vintage fountain · Expansive lawn · On-site cook · Housekeeping · Curated library of old books Also available as: Intimate venue for small celebrations, creative retreats, and private events
Getting There — Kempegowda International Airport (Bengaluru): approximately 30 minutes by road — the closest major airport in India to a property of this quality. Ideal for travellers arriving from any city. — Bengaluru city centre: approximately 30–40 km, around 1 hour by road depending on traffic. — Yelahanka: approximately 10 km from the property — the nearest local hub with restaurants, markets, and services. — Cab and auto services are readily available. The property provides an address and directions on booking confirmation.
Nearby — Bengaluru city: 30 km · Yelahanka: 10 km · Bengaluru Airport: 30 min · Nandi Hills: 45 km · Devanahalli Fort: 15 km · Dhakshini Antiques store (city): 30–40 minutes by road
Best Time to Visit: Year-round — Bengaluru’s climate is consistently pleasant. October to February for the most comfortable temperatures. The property is equally beautiful in the monsoon when the lawn is at its greenest.
