Red-oxide floors
The floor the house has always had, polished by 150 years of bare feet, set against wood-lined walls and shuttered windows.
Original floorWood panelling
Chathurthyakary · Kuttanad · Kerala
A house the family has never left
Emerald Isle is a 150-year-old ancestral country house on the Kuttanad backwaters — six rooms behind carved teak, nine acres of spice and fruit garden, and a thousand acres of paddy across the water.
Original architecture & teak carvings
9 acres of garden
6 rooms
About 10 km from Alappuzha town
150+
Years in the family
9
Acres of garden
6
Rooms only
1000
Acres of paddy in view
Our Story
The deed is carved into a palm tree
More than 150 years ago the owner's great-great-grandfather bought this land. The family still has the original deed — cut into the trunk of a palm on the property.
The house has stayed in the family ever since, and it has stayed itself: the original architecture is intact, the teak wood carvings are the ones the carpenters cut, and the floors are still the deep red oxide of a Kerala country house.
It sits on nine acres of secluded spice and fruit garden on the Kuttanad backwaters, looking out over a thousand acres of paddy. Alappuzha town is about 10 km away, and it feels much further.
കുട്ടനാടിന്റെ ഹൃദയഭൂമിയിൽ, ജലത്തിന്റെ തീരത്ത്, ഒരു ഹൃദ്യമായ അതിഥിഗൃഹം.
Vijo
Owner & host · Emerald Isle
The Rooms
Six rooms, all of them original
Nothing has been ripped out and rebuilt. You sleep inside carved teak, on red-oxide floors, in a country house that has been lived in continuously for more than 150 years.
Down the panelled passage
Rooms open off short teak corridors rather than a corridor of doors — the way the house was built, not the way a hotel is planned.
Teak joineryOriginal layout
Lamplight and old furniture
Beamed ceilings, hanging lamps and furniture the family has kept. Everything in the house is used, none of it is staged.
Beamed ceilingFamily furniture
There are only six rooms, and the whole house is still the family's. Send your dates and Vijo will tell you what is free.
Check Availability
Experiences
The days here are not scheduled
Six things people actually do at Emerald Isle. No packages and no fixed departures — you say what you feel like, and the family arranges it.
01
Canoe rides on the canals
The waterways branch off the main canal and narrow until they are barely wider than the boat. You go out with someone who has paddled them their whole life.
02
Village walks
Chathurthyakary is best taken slowly on foot — paddy lying below the level of the water, small shrines at the crossroads, nothing arranged for visitors.
03
Home-cooked Kerala meals
Cooked in the house by the family, from the garden and the local catch. Guests tend to talk about the food for longer than they talk about the rooms.
04
Birdwatching
The canal is a flyway. Kingfishers, herons, cormorants and egrets work the bamboo-shaded bends and the open paddy edges at first light.
05
Fishing with locals
The men who fish these banks have been doing it every evening for decades. Go out with them, or stand and watch — both are welcome, neither is a tour.
06
Sunset on the water
Late in the day the water goes still and the light comes in sideways across the paddy. Sit out with it, or take a boat onto the open water.
Gallery
Kuttanad, as it actually looks
Water on three sides, nine acres of spice and fruit garden, and paddy running to the horizon. This is the house, its water, and the light it gets.
Book Direct
Three reasons to write to the house itself
01
You talk to the family
Your enquiry reaches Vijo, who owns and runs the house. The person who answers you is the person who meets you at the gate.
02
The best rate we have
Booking direct means no travel-site commission sitting on top of the room. Whatever we can do on price, we can do here.
03
Everything stays flexible
Meals, a canoe, an early start for the birds — tell us what you would like and it is arranged around your days, not a package.
Visit
Write to us, and we will write back
Send your dates and how many of you there are. Calling or messaging on WhatsApp is quickest — the house is about 10 km from Alappuzha town, and we will tell you exactly how to reach the gate.
Enquire about your stay
Six rooms only, so dates go quickly in season. Tell us when and we will confirm what is free.
Emerald Isle
Six rooms, nine acres, one family
The house has been here more than 150 years. Send us your dates and come and see what that actually feels like.