In the mid-1920s, when Bombay was imploding and simultaneously expanding towards Dadar, Matunga and beyond, most of its migrant Catholic population was still living in crammed, crowded neighbourhoods in the south of the city. Around this time, Byculla resident Professor Aloysius Soares, who was part of a Catholic welfare society, was fuelled by a vision. “He and his friends wanted Catholics to move out of the city to a more serene and peaceful surrounding, own property and live in beautiful cottages,” says his daughter-in-law Freda Soares, a pianist. “He started by going house to house, inviting people to the neighbourhood of Chembur.” At the time, Chembur, says Freda, “was a world away from Byculla”. “There was no infrastructure, just vast stretches of farm and forest land.” The welfare society gave Catholics loans to build homes. Prof Soares’ own house, Belvedere, which he built in 1934, and that wore a coat of terracotta paint, became a model project in the small suburb.

Architect Rahul Chemburkar