Anita Lal, the founder of Good Earth, India's most influential lifestyle brand, conceived Sitara Himalaya not as a commission but as a continuation of her own home — a 10-room lodge perched at 8,200 feet in Palchan village, above Manali, that opened in 2023 and has already earned two Michelin Keys. The building presents itself against the Kullu valley snowline as a confident hybrid: stone-clad retaining walls drawn from Himachali building tradition, timber-framed balconies painted in warm ochre, and standing-seam metal rooflines pitched steeply enough to shed the seasonal snowfall. A separate glass-roofed pavilion behind the main structure catches the mountain light from every angle. Inside, Lal's eye moves freely across Indian, Tibetan, and English sources without feeling pulled in any single direction. The double-height dining room is the heart of it: a radial timber ceiling borrowed from Himalayan kath-kuni construction soars above floor-to-ceiling glazing that frames snow peaks as if they were paintings commissioned for the space, while crystal chandeliers and velvet armchairs in plum and teal bring a distinctly Indo-colonial warmth to the altitude. Guest rooms are wrapped in silk-printed wallcoverings — deep magenta in one, sage green with gold medallions in another — paired with chartreuse tufted ottomans and hot-pink lamp shades that refuse the usual mountain-lodge neutrals. Brass objects by Vikram Goyal and Tibetan hand-knotted rugs ground the colour in craft, keeping the whole enterprise rooted in the subcontinent rather than hovering somewhere generically alpine.

1hr 30min drive from Bhuntar airport (KUU)

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