Saif Ali Khan's Pataudi Palace: A Lease, Not a Purchase

Pataudi Palace, about an hour from Delhi in Haryana, is the ancestral home of Saif Ali Khan's family. Reports have said he bought it back from a hotel group. Saif says that is wrong, and the accounts of the lease, the hotel years and the renovation show what actually changed hands.

The building

The Incredible India tourism site says the palace was designed by Robert Tor Russell and the Austrian architect Karl Malte von Heinz, was completed in 1935 and has 150 rooms, each with its own furniture, colour palette and memorabilia collected by family members. India Today, by contrast, says it was built a hundred years ago by Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, Saif's grandfather, for his wife Sajida Sultan, so the dates differ by source.

Deccan Chronicle notes that it is also called Ibrahim Kothi, has been used for film shoots, including the song "Main Yahan Hoon" in Veer-Zaara, and that Saif was crowned the 10th Nawab of Pataudi there in 2011.

The hotel years

Incredible India says the property was leased to Francis Wacziarg and Aman Nath, owners of the Neemrana Hotels network, and was run as the Pataudi Palace Hotel between 2005 and 2014. Saif said in an interview quoted by India Today that his father leased it because by the time he came into his own, monarchy and titles had been abolished.

"My father leased it out and Francis and Aman, who ran a hotel there took good care of the property," Saif said. "My mother (Sharmila Tagore) has a cottage there and she was always very comfortable." He called it "a fair financial arrangement".

Did he buy it back?

The tourism site says that after Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi's death in 2011 the property no longer belonged to the family and that in 2014 Saif was offered the chance to buy it back. Saif disputes that framing. "Contrary to reports, I did not have to buy it back because I already owned it," he said, as India Today and The Indian Express quote him.

What he did, he says, was clear the lease. "It wasn't really re-buying, it was like clearing a lease," he told Bollywood Bubble, according to Hindustan Times, adding that money has not come easy for him. India Today's headline says he called an Rs 800 crore price tag on the palace a massive exaggeration, and the article says it is impossible to put a price tag on it. We therefore do not state a figure.

Taking it back

The Deccan Chronicle reported in November 2014 that Saif had ended the lease and taken charge of the palace, wanting to renovate it. He said then, "It has always been a home never an opulent palace," and that it needed fixing.

India Today reports that the books are back in place and Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi's cricket photographs are back on the wall. Incredible India says Saif recruited the interior designer Darshini Shah to give it a modern touch while the vintage chandeliers stayed.

A family home

The Indian Express notes that Saif is often seen spending time at the palace with his family. Deccan Chronicle records that the reception for his marriage to Kareena Kapoor Khan was held there on Oct. 18, 2012.

What we could not confirm

We could not confirm what the lease cost to clear, because the Rs 800 crore figure is disputed by Saif himself. The building's date is reported as 1935 and about a century ago. We did not read any recent report on whether the palace has been opened to visitors. The palace is in Haryana, not Mumbai.

Sources

*Cover photo: President's Secretariat, Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_President,_Smt._Pratibha_Devisingh_Patil_presenting_the_Padma_Shri_Award_to_Shri_Saif_Ali_Khan_Pataudi,_at_the_Civil_Investiture_Ceremony-II,_at_Rashtrapati_Bhavan,_in_New_Delhi_on_April_07,_2010.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_President,_Smt._Pratibha_Devisingh_Patil_presenting_the_Padma_Shri_Award_to_Shri_Saif_Ali_Khan_Pataudi,_at_the_Civil_Investiture_Ceremony-II,_at_Rashtrapati_Bhavan,_in_New_Delhi_on_April_07,_2010.jpg)* (GODL-India).*