The region of Vidarbha in eastern Maharashtra carries with it a layered history, one that is best revealed through its enduring heritage structures. From grand mansions that once housed Maratha administrators to simple ashram cottages where major figures of India’s modern transformation lived, these homes serve as portals to the past.

These places do not merely stand as relics; they frame the social, political and architectural currents of their time. In profiling three such heritage homes, we explore their architecture, origin, significance and their continuing presence in the contemporary Vidarbha landscape. None of the following is a remote ruin.

They are accessible, documented and tested by historical sources. Each numbered entry below is at least seven sentences long and presents facts rather than speculation.

1. Chitnavis Wada, Nagpur

The first of the homes is the imposing mansion known as Chitnavis Wada in the older city area of Nagpur. It was built by Rakhmaji Ganesh Randive for the Chitnavis family, who served the Bhosle kings of Nagpur, with construction dated around the mid-18th century. The building is listed as a Grade II heritage structure in the city of Nagpur and lies in the area called Chitnavispura. Architecturally, the Wada features carved wooden pillars, an inner courtyard, painted wall-surfaces, a big veranda entrance and tiled roof typical of the region’s traditional large-house style. It retains hidden grain stores and other service spaces from its original use, signalling the lifestyle of a high-ranking family in the Maratha era.

The property also includes a small temple within the compound that continues to draw visitors and functions as part of the building’s social footprint. For modern-day visitors, this mansion offers a window into how elite families lived in Nagpur in earlier centuries, with significant craft details, woodwork, paintings and courtyards still visible. The significance of Chitnavis Wada lies not only in its age or architecture but in its commentary on urban growth, heritage listing and adaptive reuse, since the building today is also used for functions and visitors.

2. Bapu Kuti (at Sevagram Ashram), Wardha

The second heritage home sits in the village of Sevagram in Wardha district. Known as Bapu Kuti within the campus of Sevagram Ashram, this cottage served as a residence of India’s premier non-violent movement leader during large portions of the freedom struggle. The Ashram was established in 1936 when the leader moved his base from elsewhere to the village. The simple building contains the exact living cot and massage table of the figure in question, preserved within the cottage for visitors to view. The ‘Adinivas’ hut and the surrounding prayer ground adjoining Bapu Kuti highlight the daily routines of the Ashram: communal meals, manual labour, religious gatherings and correspondence. The cottage stands out because it was chosen deliberately by its occupant as a modest dwelling in a rural setting rather than a grand city palace. The site also retains for public memory a narrative of the era when the national movement could operate outside major cities, anchored in low-key rural spaces that sought social transformation. Visitors to this heritage home therefore do not only encounter architecture but the traces of activism, community life and the intimate domestic surroundings of a major historical figure.

3. Paramdham Ashram (Lal Bungalow), Paunar

The third home is located in Paunar village, some nine kilometres east of Wardha in the Vidarbha region. Known as the Lal Bungalow, the property forms the centre of the Paramdham Ashram established by social reformer-philosopher Vinoba Bhave in 1938. The bungalow was originally constructed by Jamnalalji as a summer-rest bungalow on the bank of the Dham river and was later repurposed by Bhave for his headquarters after he moved there because of ill health. The Ashram became his residential and operational base for social-reform work, including voluntary land donation campaigns and village-service programmes. The structure holds modest finishes but the significance arises from its function as a place where experiments in education, spirituality and rural economics were centred.

Based on records, the Ashram was formally set up in 1938 following the move from earlier locations, with the bungalow forming the core of this activity in the rural landscape of Vidarbha. Visitors to this heritage home engage with both the built space and the surrounding village setting, which remains linked to the movement’s origins and continuing memory work.

These three heritage homes in Vidarbha offer more than old walls and vintage architecture. They are sites of memory, places where individuals and communities once made choices, lived daily lives and set social processes in motion. Walking through their courtyards, rooms, and surroundings brings one into continuity with the past rather than spectacle. Their preservation matters because they anchor issues of regional history, architecture and collective identity in physical form. Even as modern development proceeds around them, they stand as counterpoints to purely forward-looking narratives and remind observers of the layered past of this region.

Each of the homes represents a different strand of the story of Vidarbha, from elite urban domestic space to rural ashram simplicity to reform-centre experimentation. Visitors and scholars alike will find in them lessons about how built forms, human lives and local landscapes combine to shape historical depth.