In a leafy 1950s neighborhood of garden bungalows set in symmetrical squares adjoining the Delhi zoo, the home of Priti Pratap Singh, Princess of the erstwhile kingdom of Kuchaman, retains its original whitewashed form. When she first inherited the house as a young mother in the 1970s, she deemed the conventional front lawn “too boring” and set about ripping it apart to transform it into an artful magic wilderness.

A benign granite sculpture of Nandi, the bull vahana of the Hindu god Shiva, sits center stage. It’s situated between red sandstone paving and parterres of luxuriant foliage, which are bisected by a narrow channel where water bubbles from stone spheres. The veranda is shaded by a vine-laden bamboo scaffolding, made more dense thanks to grape clusters. 

The interiors, with their soaring 16-foot-high ceilings, effortlessly intensify the theme and panoply of royal Rajasthan, the Indian state in which the home is located. The region is showcased most notably in a dazzling display of antique textiles—an embroidered covering for an elephant’s howdah on one wall, a fine block-printed kalamkari on another, and a painted Nathdwara pichwai above the fireplace. 

Amid the gleaming brass and silver are elaborate embellishments of Priti’s own handiwork: A corner of the living room is converted into a tented baithak (lounge area) in saffron silk framed in carved architraves from haveli doors and, in her bedroom, plain cupboards are covered in crewel-embroidered aqua sil.