Can Isprava make bespoke luxury villas at scale?

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When Dhimaan and Nibhrant Shah began building houses in Goa a decade ago, they were entering a market that had a fairly conventional idea of luxury: more marble, more glass, more square footage. But their own houses were meant to suggest something else. When we get on a video call, the brothers and Co-CEOs of Isprava Group recall how one of the first pieces of furniture they acquired for an Isprava house was not furniture at all. It was the façade of a dilapidated haveli in Gujarat. Dhimaan says they had the entire piece removed, restored in a warehouse and transported to Goa, where it became a large cabinet in a living and dining room.

“It was our second home,” he continues. “We had four employees, including the two of us.”

That instinct — to make a new house feel as though it has accumulated a history — remains central to Isprava, which has grown from a boutique Goa developer into a collection of businesses spanning luxury homes, villa rentals and a private club. The company has expanded beyond Goa into places including Alibaug and Kasauli even as the market for professionally managed second homes grows across India. Today, the question asked of Isprava is whether a company can scale something that is supposed to feel rare.

Dhimaan Shah (left) and Nibhrant Shah, co-founders, Isprava Group. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement

The Shahs insist that no two Isprava houses are alike. Interiors begin, they say, from zero. One house may contain handcrafted tiles commissioned in small batches, another may use old teak furniture or architectural fragments salvaged from palaces and havelis. At one property, a birdbath is a repurposed haveli basin. At another, door handles were made from the walking sticks of the homeowner’s grandfather.

“We prefer things that are so unique that literally even if you had the money you couldn’t buy it,” Dhimaan says.

Incidentally, their customers are not necessarily looking for an overtly Indian aesthetic. Many are well travelled, and the references they bring to the design process are often international. They bring photographs of houses they have experienced in Europe or Southeast Asia to initial meetings. The challenge, then, is to translate a global expectation of luxury into a local setting.

By the poolside in Isprava’s Goa villa. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement

In Goa, that means keeping the exterior architecture broadly within the region’s Portuguese-influenced vocabulary while allowing the interiors to become more contemporary. The houses may contain sophisticated home automation and appliances, but also indigenous landscaping, reclaimed furniture and locally made finishes. Dhimaan says two things are non-negotiable in the planning of their houses: air and light. The company also favours lower-density construction, leaving more of a site unbuilt than their competitors.