Goan & Portuguese Houses

An old Goan house — whether a grand Portuguese-era mansion in Chandor or Loutolim or a modest village home in Saligão or Benaulim — was built for this climate long before air-conditioning. High ceilings let the heat rise, tall windows and doors pull the sea breeze through, thick laterite walls hold the cool of the night, and the balcão gives the family a shaded place to sit at the threshold. You can read more about how they were built in our journal on Portuguese houses in Goa.

Furnishing one well means working with all of that, not against it. A heavy blackout curtain across a tall window with oyster-shell panes, or a modern blind screwed into a carved timber frame, can undo in an afternoon what the house has kept for a century. The aim is a home that is comfortable now — private at night, protected from mosquitoes, pleasant through the monsoon — while the windows, the timber and the lime-wash stay the stars.

We approach these houses slowly. We look at the windows and frames before measuring them, work out what can be fixed where without damaging old plaster or timber, and suggest treatments that could be removed one day without a trace.