Tucked away in the mountains of Dharamshala, where mobile networks waver and concrete retreats give way to pine forests and terraced fields, sits a homestay unlike most others; not simply for what it offers guests, but for what it refuses to compromise on.

Kosen Rufu Village Recluse is not the kind of place you stumble upon. To reach it, you have to leave your car behind and walk a stretch of narrow path that cuts through the slopes of Thathri village. There are no neon boards or manicured driveways here, only a cluster of mud and slate cottages rising gently from the earth, as though they’ve always belonged.

But this isn’t a place frozen in tradition. It’s a retreat shaped with intention, a quiet rebellion against the pace and practices of mainstream tourism. Built almost entirely from handmade bricks, bamboo, and slate, Kosen Rufu is the result of years of labour, a deep personal calling, and the guidance of one of India’s most revered eco-architects, Delia Kinzinger — known to many as Didi Contractor.

Building in the lap of nature

The homestay, as it stands today, began as a piece of difficult terrain. It was constructed on a patch of land in Thathri, off Khanyara Road in Dharamshala, bought in 2018 by filmmaker Raman Siddhartha. The idea, he says, was never about just building a stay.

“I’ve lived in London for 25 years, but I was born in Himachal. My father, a bureaucrat, took me to remote villages all the time. I grew up seeing ‘kachcha makaan’ (mud homes) that were deeply rooted in the land and community,” Raman says. “That never left me. It stayed in my subconscious that if I ever returned, I would build a mud house.”

Returning to India with his wife and creative partner Manju Narayan in 2016, the couple initially explored the region as filmmakers. But the growing clutter of concrete homes, even in remote Himalayan corners, deeply unsettled them.

“Everyone was in a rush to ‘develop’,” Manju says. “Concrete everywhere. It felt like we were losing the soul of the land.”

The couple’s decision to build an entirely sustainable home and eventually, a homestay, began as a personal project. But soon, the scale and significance of what they were creating outgrew that scope.

Didi Contractor’s architecture of resistance

To bring their vision to life, Raman and Manju reached out to Delia Kinzinger, the German-American architect better known in the region as Didi Contractor. Based in Dharamshala, Kinzinger had........

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