Radhakrishnan) Road, where it became the New Woodlands Hotel, to distinguish it from the old at Royapettah, which continued as a hotel. In 1952, Krishna Rao moved Woodlands Hotel to Edward Elliot’s (Dr. The War years brought difficulties, including the crashing of a light plane in the garden! In 1947, Rajaji hosted a tea party on the lawns here to celebrate India’s independence.

It became the place where the glamorous stars of the 1940s – M.K. Krishna Rao would himself solicit guests by waiting at Central Station! The Music Academy’s annual conference in 1938 was held here under the leadership of Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iyengar, which proved a strong advertisement for the hotel. He leased the Royapettah property and established the eponymous Woodlands Hotel here, the first of what is now an immensely popular worldwide chain. Having made a success of it, he struck out on his own and set up Madras’s first Udipi hotel, ‘The Udipi Sri Krishna Vilas’ on Mount Road in 1926/27. Krishna Rao had worked as a dishwasher, waiter and flour-grinder before he got his big break, when he was asked to manage a restaurant on Acharappan Street in George Town. Not finding the going easy, he offered it on rent in 1938 to K. Woodlands was purchased by Muni Venkatappa, a building contractor, in 1937, for a hotel business. Woodlands was the city residence of the Rajah before he moved to Cenotaph Road.

One of the prominent landowners of Madras Presidency was Shanmukha Rajeswara or Naganatha Setupathi, Rajah of Ramnad, and among his many properties was Woodlands, Royapettah, a stone’s throw from the erstwhile Madras Club property that became Express Estate and is now a mall. It is reliably learnt that the space has changed hands and developers will soon swing into action. Completely cut off from public view and located at the end of a curving drive is a sylvan property that is now on its last legs.

Woodlands hotel