Tree of Life Eila Art Hotel, Manali - India's Avant-Garde Mountain Retreat

A father-daughter duo have created something extraordinary in the hills above Manali - part spaceship, part anthill, entirely magical.

Driving through the winding roads of Naggar, you'd be forgiven for doing a double-take when the Tree of Life Eila Art Hotel comes into view. Rising from the cedar forest like something from a sci-fi film, its collection of white geodesic domes appears to have landed from another planet entirely. Which, in a way, they have.

This isn't your typical Himalayan retreat. Where most mountain hotels play it safe with wooden chalets and stone facades, Eila throws convention out the window - or rather, out of its triangular, asymmetrically placed windows that frame the valley below like abstract paintings.

The brainchild of art collector Rama Shankar Singh and his daughter Palak, this decade-long labor of love represents something genuinely new in Indian hospitality. The pair weren't content to simply build another pretty hotel in the mountains. Instead, they've created what might be the country's first art hotel that actually looks like art itself.

Floating Above the Valley

The location is hard to beat. Perched on a ridge 2,000 meters above sea level in the mountain town of Naggar in Himachal Pradesh, the hotel looks out over the meandering Beas River towards the snow-capped Dhauladhar range. Ancient deodar trees, some now over 30 feet tall, snake through the restaurant and lobby – a reminder that this structure was built around nature, not in spite of it.

The commitment to sustainability runs deep. No trees were felled during construction, and the room modules were prefabricated off-site to reduce the carbon footprint. When you're dealing with architecture this unconventional, environmental responsibility becomes even more crucial.

A Canvas in the Clouds

But Eila's commitment to art goes far deeper than its Instagram-worthy architecture. Every room is named after traditional Himachali miniature painting schools, while the common areas showcase contemporary works specially commissioned for the space.

The in-house gallery, Nain Sukh, honors a brilliant local painter, while a 75-seat amphitheater hosts artist residencies and literary retreats.

The showstopper is an 80-foot mural in the restaurant that tells the story of the Kullu Valley through art – its flora and fauna, festivals, and folklore, all rendered in a vibrant contemporary style. It's the kind of wall you could study for hours, discovering new details with each glance.

This artistic heritage isn't arbitrary. Naggar has been an art haven since the 1920s when Russian painter Nicholas Roerich made it his home. His presence transformed this quiet mountain village into an unlikely cultural hub, a legacy that Eila both honors and extends into the 21st century.

Living Inside a Work of Art

The most striking accommodation here are the six "Skyscape" rooms – dome-like structures that jut out over the valley, giving guests the sensation of floating in space. Lying in bed, gazing up through the geometric ceiling windows at the Himalayan sky, it's hard not to feel like an astronaut on a very comfortable space mission.

The design inspiration came from an unlikely source: anthills. The architects studied the natural engineering of insect colonies, translating their organic curves and interconnected chambers into human-scale accommodation.

No two angles are the same, no surface is perfectly flat. It's architecture that breathes with the landscape rather than imposing itself upon it.

"There's no single vantage point from which you can see the entire structure," explains one of the creators. This wasn't accidental – they wanted every guest to experience the building differently, to discover new perspectives with each visit.