A Warm & Collected Indian Home Inspired by a Lifetime of Travel ¦ House Tour

Hi, home worthy. I'm Sarita Handa. Welcome to my home. I'll show you around. Today we're in Delhi, India, visiting the home of Sarita Handa, the founder of her namesake luxury home and lifestyle brand. What began in 1992 with a small team of artisans and a love of traditional Indian textiles has grown into an international design company, spanning furniture, fabrics, and home decor, all while celebrating the craftsmanship and artistry of India. Sarita's appreciation for textiles, art, and collected objects is woven throughout her home. Set overlooking a lush golf course, the space reflects her history and travels, layered with vintage rugs, Indian art, treasured objects, and pieces gathered from around the world. Today, Sarita is welcoming us inside to share the home she created entirely with her own vision. You're watching Homeworthy, where we believe every home has a story. Hi, I'm Sarita Handa. Welcome to my home in India. When I started my company in 1992, I was working with an international American retailer, and one day I just decided that I want to be my own boss. I don't want to work for others. And my love for textiles made me start this company under my name, because that was the only asset I had. This is on a beautiful golf course. I love the space, openness, looking at the lush green golf course down below. And that's what made me get into the space. And they just gave us four walls, and we had to create our own home. So that is what got me excited about the whole project. This is completely my own space, I could play with it. It was like a blank slate where I could draw my own pictures. And I knew what I wanted. I wanted inside out, you know, I could get the green. And it's just a very cozy, comfortable place where I can come and relax and rejuvenate for the next morning. It's very simple. And yet it's clean. It has a lot of my history, found pieces over the years, and my art collection, my rugs and my textiles. So it's an amalgamation of every found piece and giving my history over Welcome to the elevator lobby as you enter. And as you walk in, I love this piece of art. It's so colorful, and it's a piece of history for me. And I've had it for a long, long time. I love vintage rugs. And over the years, I've collected quite a few. And as you go inside, you will see each one is very different and very old. You have the Ganesha, again, an old piece. And you can see the flowers in what we call, it's a very old urli where we have the flowers in that to welcome all the guests. And then you walk in, there's a beautiful embroidered wallpaper. And I love that. I love pattern on pattern. So you can see that. This is the main lobby of the house. And I love this. It's very open. And I love the flowers. Every Sunday, we put these fresh flowers in the house. So the whole house is going to be full of flowers. And this is my favorite light, which I sourced when I moved into this house. This is what I would call my history. I've collected a huge collection of art over the years. And this is one artist. It's a tribute to one of my favorite artists. It's made in India. It's a beautifully handmade. And it's a piece of art for me again. It's all in brass metal, something that I wanted right from the beginning. I wanted white marble everywhere. So the whole house has only the bedrooms have wooden flooring. I want to talk about, you know, there's this partition between the dining space and the lobby. I love this. These are all different pieces from different parts of the world. There's hand blown glass. There's a vintage more than 200 years piece of sculpture and wood from India. And I love these pieces and they're just kept into this which creates a partition between the lobby and the dining area. Now I'm going to take you to my favorite part or the favorite wall, which is black and white. And this is a collection of six different artists. But I wanted a black and white wall in my house. I think each piece is my favorite. I just love the impact of black and white. Those are again old found pieces over the years collection of different sculptures. So we enter the dining area. I have a small informal dining for myself when I'm sitting alone and eating my breakfast or my lunch dinner. But then we have a formal dinner dining table here. And this beautiful light was customized for me. I love this light. And I entertain a lot. So we have about 10 people. I love entertaining, but there are no special tips except that I love feeding my friends and family. And there's always a good table, love flowers, candles. So but make it you know, make it your own. Make yourself comfortable and be at ease and enjoy the evening. So that's my tip. This was a rug that I got. It's an old I think more than six or 700 years old. It's a Persian carpet. And I just love the colors. People were wanting to say, don't use Indian rugs here, use more contemporary. And I said, no, this is part of my legacy. And I'm not going to avoid using my rugs, old rugs. So this is I just love the colors. So I was you know, I wanted a big table, but yet I wanted a very clean kind of a so if you see it's beautiful green on the you know, the greens are visible. It's I think it's a teak. And if you look at the base, I'm going to show you how beautifully it's it stands out. And it's a piece of art again. I just loved it. I love the chairs because they're very comfortable. And you know, I was particular about the chairs, they have to be a certain height. So that when you sit, you don't have to be uncomfortable. And you know, it took me some time to make this area. I love the wood and the stone. If you see, it's like graphite color stone. And then you have the wood and the red chairs. The red leather chairs took me some time to find. And again, they're beautiful and very comfortable. When I entertain this is the bar area, we all stand and have wine and cheese here. And then you can look at this. There's all over pieces of photographs. And this is from an artist who goes to Mara in Kenya and spends time there and takes live pictures. So these are photographs of his and I just love I wanted animals. And I wanted this. I look at it every morning when I sit here for breakfast. So lamp, again, very famous. It's a flashlight. I just love these photographs. They do something to me every morning. And I draw my energy when I look at the eyes. So now we can walk into the living room. And I wanted a very big white sofa because it overlooks the golf course. And every guest can have a view. It's really that was something I wanted when I saw this house and I want I decided that I'm going to have a very large piece of furniture. And there are different sections, as you can see, and it has an outside view all the green plants. And then when you in the evening, when you switch it off, you can see the reflection of lights in the mirror. So it's a very beautiful impact here. I love it. My favorite spot. So that the curves over as a little drama and the colorful, there's a little color in the cushions then because it's all very pastel colors and we wanted some play of colors. So we have these pillows here now. These are hand blown glass from Rano. And like I said, I have flowers and every Sunday so that the house looks fresh and clean. So now we're entering the more cozy and casual part of the living room. This chair is very comfortable, my favorite chair. So this is a set of three tables. There are different shapes and different heights. And I love books. If you can see everywhere, you'll find books, books on fashion, books on art, books on rugs. And I find my inspiration from my books. So there's a whole collection of books. Now we're going to walk towards my study, or you can call it an informal sitting, where when they just one or two people, we sit here. Since I'm very, I'm Indian and very spiritual, you have a beautiful Shiva, a piece of art. And the if you go close by, you'll see this is really a beautiful piece. And I got it at least 20 years ago. Each the frame is with hand casted figures of Shiva. It's very special. And then you can see a lot of books on the other wall. And you can focus on the rug. It's a patchwork vintage rug, which I got from Turkey. So I just felt that the entire living room was very soft and pastel. And I wanted one corner to be very colorful. So it's a red patchwork rug with different designs. And then there's a beautiful sofa in velvet, and the blue chairs. It complements the art that I have again, because that's patina and the colors sit very well. It's very cozy and sweet, sweet room, like a little den for me. I'll tell you this place has a lot of Indian sculptures and pieces in stone. And then you have, again in porcelain, you have some photographs and it's a mix of pieces that I was gifted or I bought myself. And there's a beautiful picture frame which is again from it's a vintage silver picture frame of me and my husband years ago. So that that there is very special for me. It's just a collection of my books and my artifacts which I collected over the years. Then I have my grandchildren's photographs on a beautiful copper table, which is hand casted. And I'm going to start with my favorite rugs. These are really, really old, you can see bare threads here, but it's it's really pretty. I love it. The colors are very warm and inviting. I have a beautiful desk here with my family pictures and books. And I sit and do my paperwork on this desk. This chair is very comfortable. It moves so I can move it when I want to write. And then when I'm watching my television, this is the place I sit and I can put my feet up, relax and chill. It's leather and wood. It's actually a little bench, but I'm using it as a coffee table so I can put my coffee and my newspaper when I read it in the morning. Those are old glass paintings. Like I said, I have a lot of history and these are vintage. They're really old. They must be about two to three hundred years old. It's a beautiful silk bed runner, which is pretty old. It must be about 20, 25 years old and it's in silk. And then you have embroidered pillow, again, a beautiful lumbar and ivory bedspread. I love paisley, so there's a beautiful paisley throw on the headboard. These are all Indian artists. This was gifted to me, the big the two sisters here. It was gifted to me on my special birthday with my children. I needed some drawers to keep my medicine and everything. So they're different. I just wanted sometimes imperfection is also style and I love that. I don't want too much of symmetry everywhere. So a little bit of play is good. So like I said, I'm spiritual. I wouldn't say I'm religious, but I'm spiritual. So this is my little temple. And you can see it's got beautiful flowers and I just love it. It's peaceful and quiet. So this is the second bedroom. Again, you can see we have a lot of Indian gods, my favorite, Ganesha. You'll find a lot of him everywhere. And you can see beautiful rugs. Again, it's a beautiful bed runner, a nice white ivory bedspread and the pillows, which make it more inviting. And every room has art. You can see that that's history for me. And it overlooks, the room overlooks the city and it's got a beautiful view. It's, you know, in symmetry with the pillars. This is very, like we've done this in our bathrooms and we've done this on the pillars and it continues the same style on wood also. That's, I love this. Again, you can see beautiful artwork on the wall. And this is all about water and there's a little bit of Buddha in it. So you can rejuvenate and you can be peaceful. It's like a taupe. It's a graphic. I just wanted a little bit of texture on the wall. So we use this wallpaper. It's just cozy and comfortable and comfortable. I think that that's all I can say. The lighting, the energy, positive energy, it's got beautiful art and my family, my friends. I love having people over. I entertain a lot. So I think that keeps the place very happy and full of joy. So since I'm still working, I'm constantly in a very regimented routine. I get up in the morning, which is not very early. And then my trainer comes in and a little bit of work, workout. After that my breakfast and then I go to work. Evenings I come back, listen to music, watch some TV, read some books and that's it. It's a beautiful afternoon, you can see. And it's lovely plants here. I love the olive tree in the corner here. And we overlook the golf course. It's lush green. In the evenings for a drink when we sit outside when it's cool and pleasant. We sit outside and have a wine, a glass of wine and have our drinks here. Because it's all lit on the golf course and it looks really beautiful. This is outdoor furniture because the weather here is very harsh, very cold. So it's all outdoor furniture. And we sit across and we put the table in the center and it's easy. And we have solar lights if you notice and those get lit in the evening. I think it's just the space, the view and the golf course, lush green. I think that's it. And there's a water body here which looks beautiful, very serene. The home means comfort. It means cozy. It means peace so that I can go back again to face my world again the next morning. Hi, Homeworthy. It's been so much fun spending the day with you. But I think I have to go. My grandchildren are coming and we're going to have party time now. Thank you. Thanks for watching. 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