Lakshmi Vilas Palace

Start with the gravel. It shifts and crunches under your shoes as the long drive opens out. Then the palace appears across the lawns, a wide wall of warm red stone. Domes, turrets and small pavilions crowd its skyline. In the late afternoon the sandstone turns the colour of strong tea, and white stone trim catches the light along every arch. Somewhere near you, parakeets are arguing in the trees. Take a breath here. You are standing at the home of a family that once ruled this city.

This is Lakshmi Vilas Palace in Vadodara, a city that many people still know by its older name, Baroda. The palace was built in the late nineteenth century for Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad the Third. The Gaekwads were a Maratha dynasty, a ruling family from western India, and Baroda was one of the wealthiest princely states under British rule. The building was completed around 1890. Even today, members of the Gaekwad family live here, so parts of this place are still a private home.

The story of the Maharaja himself is the first surprise. Sayajirao was not born a prince. He grew up in a farming family in a village far from here. In 1875, as a young boy, he was chosen and adopted into the royal line after the previous ruler was removed from power. He was then educated with great care. He grew into a reformer who is remembered for schools, libraries and public works across his state. This palace was his statement to the world.

The design is usually credited to Major Charles Mant, a British military engineer. After Mant died, the work passed to another architect, Robert Fellowes Chisholm, who carried the project to completion. Locals sometimes tell a darker tale about Mant, saying he feared his designs would fail and that worry ruined him. Treat that as legend, not record. What is certain is that two very different hands shaped what you see, and the building carries both.

The style is called Indo-Saracenic. That term describes a blend that British architects developed in India during this era. It mixes Hindu and Jain temple forms with Islamic arches and domes, and then adds European ideas of planning and comfort. Look along the facade. You can pick out pointed arches, onion domes, carved brackets and slender towers that would sit easily on a Gothic church. The mixture is deliberate. It was meant to look Indian, royal and modern all at once.

Now, the claim you will hear most often. The palace is regularly described as roughly four times the size of Buckingham Palace in London. Guides repeat it, and it is a good line. Whatever the exact figure, the scale is real. Walk the length of the main front and count how long it takes. The building stretches out like a small town, with wings, courtyards and service blocks hidden behind the formal face.

Notice the materials as you get closer. The main walls use red sandstone, but darker stone and pale marble appear in bands, columns and window frames. This contrast gives the facade its striped, layered rhythm. Run your eye up a single bay, from the base to the parapet, and you can see how many separate carved elements sit stacked on top of each other. Each one was cut by hand. The craftsmanship is easiest to read in the shadows of the deeper arches.

Inside, the most famous room is the Durbar Hall. A durbar was a formal royal court, where the ruler received guests and held ceremonies. The hall has a mosaic floor, stained glass windows and walls rich with decoration. Music and state events once filled this space. When you enter, pause and look down first, then up. Visitors often rush to the walls and miss the floor beneath them, which is one of the finest details in the room.

Here is a second surprise. Many of the sculptures in and around the palace are by an Italian sculptor, Augusto Felici, who worked for the Maharaja. Look for marble and bronze figures in the interiors and the courtyards. They show a European classical training, yet they were made for an Indian king. That meeting of worlds runs through the whole building. Even the lawns follow the idea, laid out in an English manner but filled with Indian trees and birds.

The grounds are wide enough to hold far more than a house. A golf course now spreads across part of the estate. Near the palace there is also the Navlakhi stepwell. A stepwell is a deep, stone-lined well with flights of steps leading down to the water, a design found across Gujarat. It is much older than the palace. Standing at its edge, you can feel the air cool slightly as it rises from the stone below.

Also within the estate is the Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum, housed in a building that was once a school for the royal children. Its best-known treasures are paintings by Raja Ravi Varma, one of the most celebrated Indian painters of the nineteenth century. Sayajirao invited him to Baroda and commissioned many works. Ravi Varma painted Hindu gods and epic scenes with European oil techniques. His images later spread across India in printed form and shaped how millions pictured their stories.

As you move through the palace, keep in mind that it is a lived-in place. Some rooms are closed, and photography rules can be strict indoors. Follow the signs and ask staff before you raise a camera. Move slowly. The pleasure here comes from small things — a carved bracket, a coloured pane of glass, the echo of your own steps in a long corridor. The palace rewards patience more than speed.

Before you leave, walk back out onto the lawn and turn around. Let your eyes travel along the roofline one last time. Listen to the birds, the distant traffic of the city beyond the walls, the gravel under your feet again. A boy from a village grew up to build this. As you head toward the gate, glance back once more. The red stone will look a shade deeper than when you arrived.