Inside Acron Waterfront Resort: From ancestral home to charming Goan retreat

Nuzzled on the banks of the Baga River, right where it entwines into the Arabian Sea, is Acron Hospitality’s picturesque Acron Waterfront Resort. A property with all the quaintness and allure of a boutique hotel Acron Waterfront Resort has been ranked the top hotel in Goa by TripAdvisor’s Traveller’s Choice Awards and is also ranked sixth in the country. Considering the Waterfront’s area — measuring in at about an acre and split into two sections by a public road – it has certainly succeeded in creating an oasis, tranquil and breezy, bounded within its own property yet not at all untied from the surrounding landscape.

Infinity Pool at Acron Waterfront Resort

Somaya and Kalappa Architects, the design brains behind the project, have extensively worked in Goa – The Leela being their first project in the state. Over the years, the Mumbai-based firm has come to almost intuitively understand Goa’s architectural and cultural motifs, and so were able to weave a distinct Goan aesthetic into the resort.

What made this project especially interesting to work on, for principal architect Brinda Somaya and director Nandini Sampat, was the fact that it was previously a residential, ancestral property, and so of immense sentimental value to the owners, Amar and Joseph Britto.

“It was very important that we did not destroy what they felt for the property,” explains Brinda. “We had lots of conversations with Amar and Joseph, to learn about them, understand them because it was their home, and we were going to make it from something very personal and private to something that’s going to be public. However, keeping in mind the scale and the design, it still had to remain very private in many ways.”

Rather than be limited by these conditions, the team chose instead to embrace them. Acron Waterfront Resort is speckled with familial trees, cropping up in the middle of external staircases and draping their branches languidly into the resort’s two jacuzzis. “I find it very hard to cut them, especially big, beautiful trees like that—you just don’t see them anymore,” says Nandini.

For affairs of the stomach, guests at Acron Waterfront can try The River Restaurant, established by award-winning UK MasterChef Cyrus Todiwala, which curates wide-ranging menu of regional and international dishes.

Added Brinda, “Architecture and design is a part of life. Everything that it was meant to be has happened, and that’s where the experience becomes really special.” If the merits of design can be judged by how effortlessly people are able to adapt to it, then Acron Waterfront Resort certainly wins on that front.

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