Discover Soona Mahal Along Mumbai's Marine Drive

Built in 1937 at the junction of Churchgate and Marine Drive, Soona Mahal was designed by Suvernpatki and Vora with consulting architect G.B. Mhatre, 20th century Bombay's most prolific, if under-recognised, Deco architect.

Pictured here is a water colour on paper rendering of Soona Mahal

Soona Mahal was built by the Late Kawasji Fakirji Sidhwa, who ran, amongst other things, a flourishing, completely legal, country liquor business. With the reclamation of the Backbay, today's Marine Drive, he envisioned in Soona an Art Deco palace with a commanding sea view.

At Marine Drive, we notice a shift away from the westernised building names used a decade earlier at the Oval - Belverdere Court, Windsor House, and Oval View. Soona Mahal, for instance, was named after Sidhwa's wife, the strong-willed and graceful Late Soona bai Kawasji Sidhwa.

Many remember Soona Mahal as Soona Service Suites, a warm, welcoming bed and breakfast, and home away from home for many of the city's working professionals, run by Khorshed Sidhwa, the owner's daughter-in-law. Meanwhile his son, Keki C Sidhwa, was an accomplished boxer; at a young age he was Western India’s featherweight boxing champion for 5 years in a row, from 1937-41.

The building's distinctive Deco features include the structure's streamlined design, deep cantilevered balconies, pops of bright colour, vertical accents and commanding rooftop turret.

Notice the stepped ziggurat motifs at the top end of the vertical bands and coloured vertical accents on the building's exterior. Running cement chajjas or 'eyebrows' and deep, curvilinear balconies offered reprieve from the sun's glare, as residents enjoyed panoramic views of the bay by the sea.

Soona Mahal, like most of Marine Drive's Deco buildings, was topped by a flat terrace, and circular viewing gallery, a unique, social space for its residents.

To Mehernosh Sidhwa, the building's current resident and grandson of the owner, the round, turreted structure looks like a docked spaceship, moments before take-off.

A purist, Sidhwa strives hard to ensure that the building is preserved in its original form and design.

Inside, Soona Mahal displays some of the hallmarks of Art Deco design and construction - including the original elevator, carved wooden stairwells, and coloured-marble cladding on the walls.

The oval shaped ceiling of the entrance lobby has a two-toned bead cornice moulding with single ogee or S-shaped brackets at regular intervals. It adds a sense of drama and finery to the space.

Soona Mahal remains one of the most authentic Art Deco structures along Marine Drive. The outstanding universal value of Mumbai's Art Deco in general, and Marine Drive's sea-facing development in particular, was recognised on June 30, 2018, when the Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles, Mumbai, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The inscription includes the spectacular massing of 35 buildings in Art Deco along Marine Drive, a section of which is pictured here.