Wildflower Hall, Chharabra
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
A backgrounder
Abhilash Gaur, Dec 3, 2023: The Times of India
From the start, viceroys had a soft corner for Wildflower Hall. In his 1904 book ‘Simla Past And Present’, Edward J Buck says it was a “favourite retreat” of Lord Ripon (1880-1884). The wife of Ripon’s successor, Lord Dufferin, mentions a visit in her diary on May 20, 1885: “Wildflower Hall was so exceedingly cold this morning that we are glad to be back in our own room (in Shimla).”
Set 1,000 feet above Shimla, the Hall was bound to be cold round the year, and Lady Dufferin was grateful for its fireplaces that were “quite out of proportion to the tiny rooms”.
It was still drawing viceroys in 1892 when The Times of India of May 19 reported that all the houses on the Mashobra and Mahasu ridges had been “snapped up” for the summer, and “Wildflower Hall, perched on the highest point of the Mahasu range, has been reserved for the Viceroy”.
But the man who made the Hall his own arrived in 1903. He was the ‘jungi lat sahib’ (lord of war) or commander-in-chief Lord Kitchener. He had rented it as a retreat from his official residence, Snowdon, in Shimla city, and spent “several thousands of rupees” on laying out gardens and grassy slopes.
The names Kitchener and Wildflower Hall have been inseparable since, but the house he lived in and the present hotel have little in common. When Kitchener left, the house was sold to Mrs Hotz, who owned the Cecil in Shimla and the Gables in Mashobra (site of the present Club Mahindra) at the time. She pulled down the old cottage and built a 40-room hotel in 1912.
Wildflower Hall under Mrs Hotz soon became known for providing “solid comfort, excellent food, and simplicity”. Russell Miller’s book ‘Uncle Bill’ describes Sunday lunch at Wildflower Hall under Mrs Hotz: “(it) started with mulligatawny soup, followed by chicken curry and rice, roast pork, cold meats and salad, apple tarts, cheese and coffee – all for two and a half rupees per head”.
By the time the former chief of BBC’s Far Eastern Service, John Morris, visited in 1968, the Hotz era was long over. “The place is now a government tourist rest-house,” he wrote, adding, “it has been refurnished, painted and modernised”.
The fire on March 4, 1993 destroyed the last link with Mrs Hotz, but could not dislodge the jungi lat sahib, Kitchener.
The court case as in 2023
Anand Bodh, Nov 19, 2023: The Times of India
SHIMLA: The Himachal Pradesh high court stayed Saturday the state government’s executive order, passed just hours ago, for the appointment of an administrator for the colonial-era Hotel Wildflower Hall at Chharabra being run by the Oberoi group. Justice Satyen Vaidya stayed the takeover of the luxury property and barred the state from interfering in the day-to-day management of the hotel till further orders.
The hotel is nestled approximately 13km from Shimla, atop a knoll with breathtaking views of the Himalayas and enveloped by cedar forests, Wildflower Hall boasts a rich history as the former estate of Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, the commander in chief of the British army.
Later, the estate’s ownership rested on the state government, and it was being run by the HP State Tourism Development Corporation. A devastating fire completely burnt down the building in the early 1990s.To rebuild the heritage hotel, the state government decided to invite private participation and subsequently executed a joint venture agreement (JVA) with East India Hotels Limited (EIHL) and Oberoi Group in October 1995 to incorporate a company by the name of Mashobra Resorts Limited (MRL) for running a five-star hotel at Wildflower Hall. The Oberoi Group transformed the estate into a splendid retreat sprawling across 22 acres of land, featuring 86 rooms.
The agreement allowed the state to terminate it if the hotel wasn’t fully operational within four years of possession of land, with an option to avoid termination by paying a penalty of Rs 2 crore per year. On May 3, 2000, the period of four years from the date of handing over possession expired, without the hotel being fully commercially operational. EIHL failed to pay the penalty, while the government chose not to terminate the agreement.
According to a joint venture agreement (JVA) with East India Hotels Limited (EIHL) and Oberoi Group the agreement, after the expiry of six years, if the hotel was still not fully commercially operational, the contract was to stand automatically terminated. The current legal case stems from that as the state government moved in to reclaim the property. Saturday’s court order follows a significant decision made by a HC division bench on October 13 last year, dismissing an appeal filed by EIHL and others against a single-bench order, which upheld an arbitration award favouring the state government in the possession dispute over the property.
The division bench noted the failure to make the hotel fully commercially operational by May 3, 2022. This failure triggered the “automatic reversion” of the property to the state government, as stipulated in the agreement between the parties, it said. Justice Vaidya highlighted that the court had asked the state to clarify its intentions regarding possession of the property by December 15. But the state officials initiated action by visiting the hotel premises on Saturday morning itself, breaching the court’s timeline.
