Once a corner of the Maharaja of Kashmir’s private estate, in the quiet village of Tangmarg between Srinagar and Gulmarg, a two-bedroom cottage has been transformed into one of the most singularly designed homestays in the Himalayan north — gothic windows, vibrant art, a stream from the Drung River at the door, the Pir Panjal range at the window, and Insha, the heart behind the home, there to make sure mornings begin with Kahwa and the right kind of quiet.
The Mughal Emperor Jehangir said it first and said it best, standing somewhere in this valley four centuries ago: Gar firdaus bar-rue zamin ast, hami asto, hamin asto, hamin ast. If there is a heaven on earth, it’s here, it’s here, it’s here. Kashmir has been accumulating this testimony since before anyone had the framework to understand why. The light on the Pir Panjal range in the mornings. The Chinar trees along the winding roads, orange and red in autumn, green and full in summer. The particular stillness of a valley that has always known how to make time feel movable.
Tangmarg sits 40 kilometres from Srinagar and 14 kilometres before Gulmarg — close enough to both for practical access, far enough from either to feel genuinely removed from their respective crowds and infrastructures. It is a quiet hamlet on the edge of the mountain country, the kind of place whose narrow lanes and local rhythms persist regardless of what is happening in the more visited hill towns nearby. The road arrives through Chinar trees. The mountains are immediately present. The pace drops the moment you turn off the main highway.
And somewhere in the narrow lanes of this village, behind a gate that opens into what was once a corner of the Maharaja of Kashmir’s private estate, sits The Cheese Cottage — named, apparently, for the dairy that was once operated on the grounds, and now housing one of the most thoughtfully designed and most warmly hosted properties in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Setting
The cottage sits within a fenced private estate interspersed with wildflowers and fruit trees, bisected by a calming water stream that originates from the Drung River. This stream — audible from every corner of the property, visible from most windows, crossable by a small wooden bridge that leads to the cottage from the main gate — is the property’s defining natural feature. It runs beside the house with the unhurried confidence of water that has been running this way for centuries, regardless of who owned the land.
Trees of pine, oak, and rhododendron surround the estate. The Pir Panjal range — the southern wall of the Kashmir Valley, snow-capped in winter, dark green in summer — fills the distant view from the upper-floor sitting area and the two bedrooms. This is a property that has been positioned deliberately: every significant window faces something worth looking at.
The Design
The Cheese Cottage is one of the most distinctively designed homestays in this series, and the design deserves a proper description because it is neither the predictable rustic aesthetic of a Himalayan homestay nor the blank luxury of a boutique hotel. It is something specifically its own — a boutique European home from the 1980s transplanted to a Kashmiri estate, with a modern character layered over old bones.
The living area is entered through an arched door into a dramatically proportioned space with exposed-cement walls. Abstract wall art and an atypical fibre art installation cover the walls. Oversized windows on every side allow the landscape to enter the room without the room having to make any concession. A deep purple tuxedo sofa and a pair of wingback lounge chairs topped with fur throws face the fireplace — the centrepiece of winter evenings, the social heart of the house when the valley is cold and the Pir Panjal has snow. A low-hanging chandelier adds drama to the evenings in a way that chandelier is rarely used honestly to achieve.
An open kitchen occupies a corner of the living area. A long dining table of cement and bricks runs parallel to it. A chaise longue rests beside a large window and makes the kind of reading nook that guests tend to claim on the first afternoon and not fully relinquish.
An exterior staircase leads from the living area to the upper floor, where a common lobby connects the two bedrooms. On one side of the hallway, a sitting area enclosed by large windows looks out over the entire estate and the Pir Panjal beyond. And then the touch that guests photograph and describe and remember: a bright red London-style telephone booth, placed in a corner of the lobby with the deliberate whimsy of someone who understands that the right unexpected object, in the right space, makes an interior genuinely memorable.
The two bedrooms have wood-clad walls, oversized windows maintaining the visual grammar of the rest of the house, exquisite bedding, and en-suite bathrooms clad in black marble with elegant fittings. The central heating serves the whole house; additional heaters are available for the bedrooms in deep winter; the fireplace in the living room is the warmest and most sociable option of all.
Insha and the Home
The Cheese Cottage is managed through Hushstays, but the heart behind it — the person whose presence shapes the stay — is Insha, the local host whose warmth and knowledge of Tangmarg and its surroundings is the human context that gives the beautiful space its character. Mornings begin with Kahwa — the saffron and cardamom-spiced green tea of Kashmir — and crisp mountain air. Afternoons carry, in the words of those who have stayed, the scent of homemade Kashmiri delicacies. Evenings settle by the fire with stories.
Shiv Raj ji, the resident caretaker, is the operational heart of the cottage: cooking, hosting, guiding guests on the nearby trails, and producing the local Kashmiri delicacies that guests consistently single out as one of the most memorable parts of the stay. His apricot curry — made with love, in the words of one guest — is specifically worth noting. He knows the surrounding landscape with the knowledge of someone who has lived in it, and his guidance on the walks and trails that extend from the property into the Drung Valley and beyond is more valuable than any guidebook.
What to Do
A fifteen-minute walk or bicycle ride along the Ferozapora Nalla leads to the banks of the Drung River — a picnic spot of considerable beauty, accessible without arrangement and worth the walk for the river alone. A little further is the Drung waterfall, which freezes completely in winter and constitutes one of the more extraordinary natural spectacles accessible from this part of Kashmir. In summer, the same waterfall is a cool, verdant cascade through a forest that smells of pine and recent rain.
The caretaker can arrange for a local guide for day hikes into the Drung Valley’s most pristine spots — trails that are not on any tourist circuit and require local knowledge to access meaningfully. ATV rides to the Drung waterfall are available from Tangmarg’s main square for those who want motorised access. Picnics by the brook — with chai served by the cottage staff while the sun goes down — are specifically listed as an experience available to Hushstays guests and are exactly as good as they sound.
Gulmarg is thirty minutes by car — the famous hill town with its Gondola, the highest cable car in the world, its ski runs in winter, and its extraordinary meadows in summer. The lesser-known Doodhpaathri — imagine endless meadows and a vast expanse of pine trees, in the words of the cottage’s own description, which is accurate and insufficient — is two hours away and one of the finest half-day excursions available in this part of Kashmir.
The Seasons
Each season at Tangmarg brings something distinct. Summer offers heavenly blue skies and the full lush green of the Kashmir Valley in its most productive and most beautiful form. Spring brings wildflowers across the estate and the surrounding meadows. Autumn brings crimson Chinar leaves — the defining image of Kashmir in October, when the estate and the roads of Tangmarg take on the quality of a painting that everyone who has ever seen Kashmir associates with the word paradise. Winter brings snow — a magical carpet of white, the frozen waterfall, the fireplace in the living room earning every one of its dimensions, and the Pir Panjal range at its most dramatically clear and most permanently snowed.
Why It Stays With You
The Cheese Cottage works because the two things that matter most in a homestay — the space and the host — are both exceptional. The space is the work of someone who understood that a house on a Maharaja’s estate in Tangmarg deserved design that honoured the extraordinariness of its position without mimicking it. Gothic windows and exposed cement and a red telephone booth and fur throws on wingback chairs beside a Kashmiri fireplace: this is not a language that should work in this setting, and the fact that it does is the measure of how well it was conceived.
Insha’s warmth. Shiv Raj ji’s Kashmiri cooking. The stream from the Drung River running alongside the cottage at all hours. The Pir Panjal in the distance. The Kahwa at dawn. The Chinar trees along the road.
If there is a heaven on earth, Jehangir said, it’s here. He was not wrong about the valley. He could not have known, obviously, about the cottage. But he was the right person to have owned the estate.
Plan Your Visit
Address: Tangmarg, District Baramulla, Jammu and Kashmir (40 km from Srinagar · 14 km from Gulmarg · 4 km from Drung Valley) Phone: +91 88269 15266 (Hushstays — 9 am to 6 pm) Website: hushstays.com/cheese-cottage-tangmarg-kashmir Booking: Direct via Hushstays website (Book Now) Also: Listed on Airbnb (search Cheese Cottage Tangmarg Hushstays)
Host: Insha (local host, heart behind the home) Caretaker and cook: Shiv Raj ji (resident, cooks local Kashmiri cuisine) Managed by: Hushstays (exclusive marketing and management partner)
Heritage: Former corner of the Maharaja of Kashmir’s private estate
The Cottage: — 2 bedrooms (wood-clad walls, oversized windows, exquisite bedding, black marble en-suite bathrooms) — Dramatic living area (exposed cement walls, abstract art, fibre art installation, purple tuxedo sofa, fur throws, fireplace, low-hanging chandelier) — Common lobby with Pir Panjal sitting area + red London telephone booth — Open kitchen + brick-and-cement dining table — Chaise longue reading nook — Fenced private estate with wildflower gardens, fruit trees, wooden bridge — Stream from Drung River running beside the cottage
Capacity: Up to 4 guests comfortably; extra mattresses available up to 6 guests. Entire cottage exclusively for one group at a time.
Meals: Breakfast included (served 9–10:30 am) · Lunch and dinner by prior notice · In-house Kashmiri cuisine by Shiv Raj ji (vegetarian and non-vegetarian) · Fully equipped kitchen available for self-cooking · Farm-to-table meals seasonal · Kahwa every morning
Facilities: Central heating · Fireplace · Pet-friendly · Fully equipped kitchen · 4G connectivity (Airtel and Jio) · No WiFi (bring Jio dongle for work) · RO drinking water and refillable bottles · No single-use plastic
Experiences: Picnic by the brook (chai at sundown) · Drung River walk / cycle (15 min) · Drung waterfall (seasonal freeze in winter) · Day hikes into Drung Valley (local guide arranged) · ATV rides to waterfall · Gulmarg day trip (30 min) · Doodhpaathri meadows (2 hrs)
Check-in: 1:00 PM · Check-out: 10:00 AM
Getting There — Srinagar International Airport (SXR): approximately 40 km — around 1 hour by road. Taxis readily available; Hushstays can arrange cabs on prior notice. — From Srinagar city: approximately 40 km — around 1 hour via the Srinagar-Gulmarg road through Magam. — From Gulmarg: approximately 14 km — around 30 minutes by road. — From Drung Valley: approximately 4 km — 10 minutes. — Tangmarg is on the main Srinagar–Gulmarg highway. The cottage is in the village — exact location and driving directions are shared upon booking confirmation. — Note: An Inner Line Permit (ILP) is no longer required for most Indian nationals visiting Kashmir, but carry all ID documents.
Nearby — Tangmarg village: adjacent · Drung Valley: 4 km · Drung waterfall: 5 km · Gulmarg: 14 km · Srinagar: 40 km · Doodhpaathri: 60 km · Yusmarg: 50 km
Best Time to Visit: October to November for the Chinar foliage — Kashmir at its most visually dramatic, the estate with crimson leaves on every tree · December to February for snow, the frozen waterfall, and evenings by the fireplace — the winter cottage experience is sublime · March to May for spring wildflowers in the estate and meadows · June to September for summer in Kashmir — blue skies, full green, the stream running well, and Gulmarg’s meadows in peak bloom
