V for Vivek. R for Rubeena. V for Valeska, their daughter. The name of this century-old Indo-Portuguese villa in the quiet village of Guirim is an abbreviation of a family — and the restoration it represents is one of the most magnificent acts of love for an old house that North Goa has seen in a very long time.
The name was always going to be VeRVe. Vivek Soni and Rubeena Singh, both Mumbai professionals, saw the villa in Guirim and fell in love with it immediately — completely, without reservation, the way you fall in love with things you know will change the shape of your life. The house was a wreck. The roof needed replacing. The masonry needed strengthening. Every door and window required attention. The entire structure, built in the 1920s by Dr. Aquilino Almeida — one of the most famous surgeons of his era in Goa — had spent decades declining from its former grandeur, its 26-foot ceilings gathering dust above floors that had once been the setting for formal balls.
None of this deterred Rubeena and Vivek. The bones were extraordinary. The architecture was one of the finest specimens of Indo-Portuguese design in North Goa. The front porch commanded views of the paddy fields and coconut plantations of Guirim with the confidence of a building that had always known it deserved to be looked at. And so they bought it, named it for their family’s initials — V for Vivek, R for Rubeena, V for their daughter Valeska — and began what architect Paul Rodrigues would later call a “unique, one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-repeated restoration.”
In 2024, The Verve Estate reopened. In 2025, it made the Condé Nast Traveller Hotlist as the only private home in India on the list. The only private home in Goa with a temperature-controlled infinity pool and swim-up bar. Forty thousand square feet of ground space. Six suites. Sixteen guests. One extraordinary house.
The Architecture and Gardens
The Verve Estate sits in Vancio Vaddo, Guirim — a village in North Goa’s Bardez taluka, five minutes from Mapusa market and twenty minutes from Anjuna and Vagator beaches. The sea-green exterior is unmistakably Goan-Portuguese, the colour a declaration of character visible long before the grand entrance gates are reached. Beyond those gates — flanked by large agave planters — a herringbone-brick driveway lined with Juniper trees leads to the main courtyard. Beneath this driveway, a Geocell-reinforced gravel path allows rainwater to seep through, harvesting water and preventing soil erosion: a very twenty-first-century solution hidden under a very nineteenth-century aesthetic.
The gardens, shaped by landscape designer Waylon D’Souza, carry a distinctly European sensibility. Lush lawns across two levels are planted with over 70 varieties of trees and plants rarely seen elsewhere in Goa. Flower beds, a koi pond, a vintage cast-iron French fountain, coconut palms, mango, banana, guava, and passionfruit trees surround the approach to the pool. The effect is of a private estate that has been tended with obsessive care — which is exactly what it is.
The pool is a specific achievement. Fifty feet by seventeen feet, with an infinity edge looking out across the adjoining paddy fields, it is temperature-controlled and the only private home pool in Goa with a swim-up bar and jacuzzi. The Gazebo beside it, positioned so that guests can sit with a drink and watch birds and butterflies move through the garden while paddy fields stretch beyond the boundary — this is The Verve Estate at its most relaxed and most itself.
The Main House
The house was built on a grand scale and restored to match. The total property covers 15,000 square feet of main house in a 40,000 square foot estate. The walls are 55 centimetres thick. The ceilings are 26 feet high. The vintage mosaic flooring — hand-laid, original — is one of the most beautiful floors in Goa. Paul Rodrigues and Rubeena Singh conducted meticulous research into the look and feel of Goa’s great old homes before touching a single surface, drawing on British colonial, French, Italian, and Goan-Portuguese references. The result is a house that feels like it was built once, by people who knew exactly what they were doing, across a century.
The front porch, with its original columns, roof, restored railings, and period furniture and lights, looks out over the fields and coconut plantations as it has since the 1920s. The rear veranda — interconnecting the main entry, kitchen, suites, and main hall — is painted with a hand-painted mural in warm and soothing colours, an antique haveli mirror dominating one wall. Guests consistently choose this veranda as one of their favourite places in the house.
The main hall is 1,200 square feet under 26-foot ceilings — a space split by two stately arches into three sections: a dining area with a 14-seat table, a library-cum-bar with a bespoke wood and leather counter opposite book-shelves of the owners’ own curated collection, and a sun lounge that blurs the boundary between the interior and the garden beyond. Art objects collected from around the world, vintage chandeliers, antique light fittings, and memorabilia from Dr. Almeida’s era fill every surface. The colonial club atmosphere that Paul Rodrigues and Rubeena Singh intended is fully, convincingly achieved.
The Six Suites
All six suites have ensuite bathrooms and the entire house accommodates up to sixteen guests. Every room is unique — the curation by Rubeena Singh through her label Verve Collective ensures that no two spaces tell the same story.
The Master Suite — 1,250 square feet, which makes it one of the grandest private suites in Goa — has a 700-square-foot master bedroom with five doors opening onto three Juliet balconies and the front veranda, a 350-square-foot master dresser with a full-sized pull-out bed beside a magnificent bay window, and a large bathroom with twin basins, a vintage cast-iron tub, and a shower enclosure. The four-poster king bed, the reading nook, the writing desk, the vintage botanical prints framed in recycled teak — this is a room assembled by someone who has stayed in enough beautiful rooms to know exactly what makes them work.
Suite 1 — designed as Valeska’s room — is 700 square feet of personality: large bookshelves housing Valeska’s personal collection, a French dresser, a cast-iron tub crowned by a Capodimonte Italian porcelain chandelier, and the best views of the house — fields in front, the swimming pool beyond. The flooring is 100-year-old hand-laid hexagon mosaic in bold, warm colours.
Suite 2, the French Room, has the highest ceilings in the house. At 550 square feet, it is furnished in the French style throughout: gilded mirror, king bed of delicate period design, tapestry, oil on canvas, beautifully carved armchairs. The vintage mosaic flooring that runs through this wing of the house is its foundation.
The remaining three suites each carry their own distinct character within the same overarching aesthetic intelligence: the finest art and period furniture, antique chandeliers, the blend of colonial, French, Italian, and Goan-Portuguese references that gives The Verve Estate its completely original design language.
The Verve Collective
The curation throughout the house is the work of Rubeena Singh under her design label Verve Collective — an interior design and styling practice shaped by years of travel, collecting, and a deep engagement with period furniture and objects d’art. To walk through The Verve Estate is to move through a single, sustained aesthetic vision: nothing accidental, nothing incongruous, everything in conversation with everything else. The experience of staying here is partly the experience of being inside this vision — of living, for a few nights, in a home that someone has curated with absolute conviction.
Why It Stays With You
The Verve Estate is Goa’s grandest private villa experience — in both scale and sensibility. But what makes it genuinely exceptional is the specificity of its character. This is not a luxury villa that could be anywhere. Its mosaic floors, its sea-green walls, its paddy field views, its cast-iron French fountain, the smell of the koi pond and the frangipani and the mango trees in the garden — these are the properties of a particular place, a particular house, a particular family’s understanding of what beauty in a home means.
Dr. Almeida built this house for three years in the 1920s because he wanted something grand. Rubeena and Vivek restored it for years because they fell in love. Their daughter Valeska has her own room here, her own books on the shelves, her own chandelier over the bath. V. R. V. The name is the story.
Plan Your Visit
Address: Vancio Vaddo, Guirim, Bardez, North Goa — 403507 Phone: +91 77740 09988 / +91 90266 59659 Instagram: @theverveestate.goa Booking: Via Rainforest (rftpm.in) · Also on Airbnb (search The Verve Estate Goa CNT Hotlist 2025)
Owners: Rubeena Singh and Vivek Soni (with daughter Valeska) Architect: Paul Rodrigues Interior curation: Rubeena Singh / Verve Collective (#VerveCollective) Landscape designer: Waylon D’Souza Built: Mid-1920s (by Dr. Aquilino Almeida) · Restored: 2024
Recognition: CNT Traveller Hotlist 2025 · Only private home in India on the list · Featured in Elle Decor
Property: 15,000 sqft main house on 40,000 sqft estate Accommodation: 6 suites with ensuite bathrooms · Sleeps up to 16 guests · Exclusive use basis Suites: Master Suite (1,250 sqft) · Suite 1 / Valeska’s Room (700 sqft) · Suite 2 / French Room (550 sqft) · 3 further suites, each uniquely curated All suites: Period furniture, antique chandeliers, vintage mosaic flooring, AC (central), full power backup, free Wi-Fi
Signature spaces: Main Hall (1,200 sqft, 26ft ceilings, 14-seat dining table) · Library-Bar · Sun Lounge · Front Porch (paddy field views) · Rear Veranda (hand-painted mural) Pool: 50ft x 17ft infinity edge, temperature-controlled — only private home in Goa with heated pool, swim-up bar, and jacuzzi Gardens: 70+ unique plant varieties · Koi pond · Cast-iron French fountain · Fruit trees (mango, banana, coconut, passionfruit, guava) · Herringbone brick driveway · Gazebo Check-in: 2:00 PM · Check-out: 11:00 AM
Getting There — Mopa (Manohar Parrikar International Airport): 25 minutes by road — the closest and most convenient airport, particularly well-served from Mumbai, Delhi, and other major cities. — Dabolim Airport (South Goa): approximately 60 km — around 90 minutes by road. — Mapusa market: 5 minutes by road — the nearest hub for groceries, restaurants, and local life. — Assagao (restaurants and cafés): 5–10 minutes. — Anjuna / Vagator beach: 20 minutes. — Panjim: 30 minutes. — Mumbai by road: approximately 600 km — around 10–11 hours. Most guests fly to Mopa.
Nearby — Mapusa Friday Market: 20 min walk · Chapora Fort: 11 km · Museum of Goa (Pilerne): 7 km · Anjuna Flea Market: 20 min · Basilica of Bom Jesus (Old Goa): 19 km · Aldona/Moira: 10 min · Panjim riverfront: 30 min
Best Time to Visit: November to February for the classic North Goa season — cool, dry, festive, with the best weather for the gardens and pool. October for the post-monsoon green when the paddy fields are at their most beautiful. March to May for quieter weeks with warm weather before the monsoon arrives.
