For well-placed urban/town residents, the Farm House (FH) or something similar in a chilled-out place close to nature has always been an aspirational lifestyle. This has strong emotional connect and is an established market segment.  With more families and friends wanting to travel and conduct get-togethers and events in off-beat places, FH are becoming commercial ventures.

Earlier FH models: typically tend to be of high level of investment, commitment & hassles. Earlier plans for a farmhouse with fruiting plants, flower beds, and trees was the aspiration of an ideal vacation home.  Based on that description, we developed the concept, which is great, but it looks so out of place after 3 years, as we have learned that the farm house itself costs about Rs. 1+ CR.  Developing the farm itself is about 0.5 CR/acre, making this more expensive than the apartment in the city where >50% of the time would be spent. 

In addition, the farmhouse has the usual hassles of employing people, keeping accounts, farming machinery, applying fertilizers, pesticides, etc., plus making sure that the labourers harvest and sell the produce without pilfering and the challenge of breaking even on costs.  Therefore, the Farm-House dream has lived its course and tends to be a White Elephant with long commitments.  Farmhouse is not very transactional as kids may not take care, and buyers don’t appreciate the effort into it.  Moreover, it does not celebrate nature’s biodiversity, especially the Western Ghats that are replete with local teak, sal, kokum, jamun and bamboo forests.  These conserve soil, groundwater and grow into considerable biomass sequestering carbon and are high-yield O₂ parks – that are more aligned to the wellness genre.

Our Wilderness Park Venture: Environmentally responsible property with wilderness appeal – Given the hassles with FH property, a new development typology of our NWT with a nursery with native species from a local forest to develop a reasonably dense fringe forest started to evolve to conserve biodiversity, maintain natural cycles and allows self-sustaining trees/vegetation.  It cuts out the need to constantly farm, irrigate, harvest and sell, while restoring the soil fertility. Unlike a luxury FH, the NWT is a rustic eco-property with a traditional village home and nursery from which expanding circles of 10m forest saplings will be planted/nurtured over time – an example is our Ramnagar Farm site, where we have embankments planned to capture water during rains.  In between the native trees, local varieties of wild fruits and creepers from the local forest that are known to grow in the soil and acclimated to the climate, will be grown.  At the back of the farm, some camping areas for enjoyment can be put up.