Our Story — Kot Kailash Heritage Retreat, Kumaon

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Our Story

Not a hotel.
Not a homestay.

A Kumaoni heritage home restored without apology to its origins. Hand-pressed mud plaster walls. Oak and rhododendron forest. Air that runs between AQI 9 and 25, year-round.

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Kot Kailash — the main house on the Shaukiyathal ridge, Almora

Kot Kailash, Shaukiyathal ridge, Almora · 7,800 ft

Our Story

A Century-Old House on a Ridge at 7,800 Feet

Almora District, Uttarakhand, Indian Himalayas

In the village of Kunja Gunth, on a ridge the Shauka shepherds once crossed with their flocks, there is a house that has stood for a hundred years. Its walls are hand-pressed mud plaster and cow dung — built not for aesthetics, but for insulation and endurance. Its floors are traditional clay. The cedar and oak forests around it have been there longer than anyone can say with certainty, and the air quality index, on most mornings, runs in single digits.

This is where Kot Kailash Kumaon was founded.

Not as a hotel. Not as a homestay. But as something the Indian boutique travel market is only beginning to find language for — a property with the warmth and cultural specificity of a private home, operated with the precision and standards of a world-class retreat. Its founders call this Professionalized Intimacy. It is, in practice, the rarest thing in contemporary travel: a place that feels genuinely discovered rather than designed to be found.

The Place

Three structures.
Eight keys.
One ridge.

Kot Kailash unfolds across three structures — Kumaoni Suites, Kutir Suites with their machan lofts, a two bedroom Family Suite, and Kumaon Vann, a standalone forest cottage with a freestanding bathtub positioned to face Nanda Devi — keeping the experience intimate in the way that only very small, very considered properties can. The hamlet of Shaukiyathal holds no more than six or seven houses and a modest village shop. Guests do not arrive here by accident.

The kitchen is called Tehni — a zero-kilometre, harvest-led concept with no fixed menu, rooted entirely in the produce of the immediate village and the season that surrounds it. What is served is determined by what the land offers that morning.

Within walking distance lies Vriddh Jageshwar — believed to be Lord Shiva’s original abode, and among the oldest living Shiva temples in the Kumaon Hills, predating Jageshwar Dham by five centuries. Jageshwar Dham, Kasar Devi, and Kainchi Dham are all within easy reach. The ridge is, by geography and by spirit, one of the most culturally layered landscapes in the Indian Himalayas.

A dedicated sound healing retreat programme — Burānsh; is offered in collaboration with Cchitvan, whose principals hold PhDs in Dhrupad. It is not a wellness amenity. It is a considered cultural offering, built for guests who understand the difference.

Kot Kailash Kumaon is, by any serious assessment, one of the most quietly compelling boutique properties to have opened in the Indian Himalayas in recent years. It has arrived at the right moment, in the right place, built by the right people.

The Founders

Built by two veterans
who chose the mountain.

A decade-long professional partnership between two hoteliers who spent their careers at the highest levels of Indian luxury hospitality — and then decided to build something of their own.

Pushkar Singh Negi, Co-Founder of Kot Kailash
Co-FounderPushkar Singh Negi
Soul of Kot Kailash

Pushkar Singh Negi

Pushkar was born in Almora. These mountains are not a setting for him — they are home in the most literal and irreducible sense. A 2011 graduate of hotel management, he began his career at The Manor, New Delhi, one of the properties that defined what considered boutique hospitality could mean in India. He then became the founding General Manager of The Kumaon, Kasar Devi — building it from an empty hillside, assembling and training a team from scratch, and leading it to the international recognition it came to receive in Forbes, Architectural Digest, and publications across Europe and North America. He was handed a piece of land and made it a destination the world sought out.

He left to build something of his own.

Pushkar is on the property every day. He knows every family in Kunja Gunth, every trail through the forest, every window that catches the first light on the Nanda Devi range. The reason guests write after they leave — not to praise the room, but to say they miss the conversation — is him.

Strategic Architect of the Vision

Sayed Aziz

A 2001 graduate of hotel management, Sayed's formative career unfolded across the centre of Indian luxury hospitality: The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Mumbai, The Oberoi Mumbai, The Taj Mahal Hotel New Delhi, The Park Kolkata. At The Manor, New Delhi — where he and Pushkar first crossed paths — he served as General Manager with additional responsibility for Revenue Management, developing the commercial intelligence that underpins any property serious about its future.

He subsequently joined Royal Enfield in 2015 — building the company's global travel, corporate administration, facilities management and global events infrastructure, contributing in representing the brand at international motorcycle launches across multiple continents, and working alongside design and architecture teams on the greenfield development of the company's global headquarters in Chennai. He later moved to London, where he manages executive operations and private estates at the most senior level of the organisation.

Sayed oversees Kot Kailash's strategic direction, international positioning, and brand architecture from London — with the particular understanding of what world-class private hospitality looks and feels like, not from the outside, but from deep within it.

Pushkar is on the ridge every morning.
Sayed is the reason the world will find it.

The best travel leaves you quieter than it found you.

How We Work

A property that is
part of the ridge,
not on top of it.

We have four principles that govern how Kot Kailash operates. They are not marketing statements. They are the conditions under which we believe a property like this can exist with integrity.

Zero-kilometre sourcing

All food sourced from Kunja Gunth. Nothing travels far to reach the table.

Local employment

Employment prioritised for determined and exceptionally talented local youth.

Traditional materials

The restoration used traditional Kumaoni materials and engaged local craftspeople.

Living in the forest

No climate machinery. No artificial intervention. The ridge has always breathed this way.

Rare Availability

Reserve your stay at Kot Kailash.

Direct bookings always receive the best available rate.

Reserve Your Stay

Or call +91 9650264905 · We respond to every enquiry personally