Fourteen rooms, one courtyard, and the sea four hundred metres east.
3 Rue Suffren, White Town, Puducherry — a merchant’s house of 1791, put back between 2016 and 2019.
- Built
- 1791
- Restored
- 2016 – 2019
- From
- ₹5,600 a night
- Breakfast
- Included, on the terrace
A merchant’s house of 1791, lived in without a break until 2014.
The Moutoussamy family bought 3 Rue Suffren in 1948 and ran a cloth business out of the ground floor for two generations. Ilango and Kavitha Moutoussamy closed the shop, took the roof off, and spent three years putting the building back.
The restoration ran from 2016 to 2019 with Meera Sundaresan, a conservation architect in Chennai who had already done four houses on this street. The madras-terrace roof was rebuilt on the original joists. The lime plaster was mixed on site with jaggery and kadukkai, the way it was mixed the first time, which is why the walls are still cool at four in the afternoon and why they will need doing again in about twenty years.
Fourteen rooms came out of it, in eight plans — no two of them the same size, because the house was never laid out for guests. The courtyard well still works and still waters the frangipani. Twenty-two people work here, all of them from Puducherry, and eleven have been here since we opened in January 2020.
We are not on the seafront and we do not have a pool. What we have is a quiet street, thick walls, a terrace that catches the sea breeze from about five, and Selvi, who has been cooking breakfast on it for six years.
- Built
- 1791
- Restored
- 2016 – 2019
- Rooms
- 14, in eight plans
- Courtyards
- 1, with a working well
- Terrace
- First floor, 62 ft long
- Staff
- 22, all from Puducherry
The house opened out: three floors, one courtyard, fourteen doors.
A developed section — the whole plan unfolded onto one wall, west on the left. The courtyard is the gap; it is open to the sky through both floors and the well is at the bottom of it. Rates are low season to high, per room per night.
₹18,000–₹24,000
₹9,600–₹12,800
₹6,800–₹9,400
₹6,800–₹9,400
₹12,400–₹16,500
₹12,400–₹16,500
₹14,200–₹18,600
₹8,200–₹11,000
₹8,200–₹11,000
₹8,200–₹11,000
₹6,800–₹9,400
₹6,800–₹9,400
₹5,600–₹7,900
₹7,400–₹10,200
One room, and sixty-two feet of terrace under the original madras-terrace roof.
₹18,000–₹24,000
Six rooms off the gallery. Four of the fourteen see the sea, and three of them are here.
₹9,600–₹12,800
₹6,800–₹9,400
₹6,800–₹9,400
₹12,400–₹16,500
₹12,400–₹16,500
₹14,200–₹18,600
Seven rooms. Three open straight onto the arcade; the well is in the courtyard.
₹8,200–₹11,000
₹8,200–₹11,000
₹8,200–₹11,000
₹6,800–₹9,400
₹6,800–₹9,400
₹5,600–₹7,900
₹7,400–₹10,200
Suffren
Verandah- Size
- 285 sq ft, ground floor
- Bed
- One king, sleeps 2
- Looks onto
- Arcade and street
- Night
- ₹8,200 low · ₹11,000 high
Kadal
Sea-facing- Size
- 330 sq ft, first floor
- Bed
- One king, sleeps 2
- Looks onto
- Sea, east
- Night
- ₹12,400 low · ₹16,500 high
Terrasse
Terrace suite- Size
- 480 sq ft, second floor
- Bed
- One king, one sofa bed, sleeps 4
- Looks onto
- Sea, terrace, rooftops
- Night
- ₹18,000 low · ₹24,000 high
Three of the fourteen.
Tariffs are per room per night and include breakfast for two on the terrace. High season runs 1 October – 31 March; low season, 1 April – 30 September.
Four of the fourteen have a sea aspect. None of them face a road with buses on it.
Breakfast is on the terrace, from half past seven.
Sixty-two feet of it, on the first floor, under a shade of woven palm that gets replaced every March. It is the coolest place in the house before nine and the best place in it at six.
Two eggs cooked how you ask, or idli with a coconut chutney Selvi has never written down. A plate of whatever fruit came up from the market — usually sapota, pomelo and small bananas. Bread from the bakery on Rue Romain Rolland, which starts baking at four. Filter coffee, or Nilgiri tea from an estate above Coonoor that we have bought from since 2020.
Dinner is eight seats at one table, three evenings a week, and you have to ask before noon. It is ₹1,450 a head and it is whatever the market had. Guests who do not want to eat with strangers are pointed at Villa Shanti, four minutes’ walk, and we will book it.
The house keeps its own hours, and they are mostly the light’s.
Nothing here is a schedule you have to keep. It is what happens anyway, between the Ashram bell and the moment Kumar locks the street gate and hands over the night key.
Rue Suffren runs one street back from the sea.
North is up. Everything on this drawing you can walk to; everything under it you cannot.
- Check in
- From 1 pm, or from 8 am if the room is free. Ask the night before.
- Check out
- By 11 am. We keep bags, and the terrace is yours until your train.
- Children
- Welcome. Dumas and Aurore take a third bed; Terrasse sleeps four.
- Closed
- 12 to 26 June, every year, for repairs before the south-west wind.