Terra Vera on St. Mark's Road, Bangalore

As a child my mother told me that Terra Vera on St. Mark’s Road had been a pretty fancy hotel. There was a Vaz family who ran it when she was a young bride, just come to Bangalore and it was considered posh to go there and ‘take’ an English tea with cucumber sandwiches and scones. Later when we came to live in Bangalore, which was several decades later and I saw the decaying house, as I passed it, to go for my German classes to the Max Muller on Museum Road, it scared me. It was extremely run down and had a Hillman Minx car in the portico. The textured walls were crumbling, but behind the grime one could tell that it was beautiful once upon a time. The place was overgrown and no one seemed to live there. It was damaged by felons and criminals and the windows seemed broken and in a terrible condition. And the massive Rain trees that grew on the pavement, could have told us tales about the house, which could have filled a book.

Amidst several high rise buildings, swanky stores and restaurants, the abandoned house located in prime property on St Marks road remained a mess to passersby. To me the house stood tired, broken, and falling apart – painting a rather sad picture. Though I'd always wondered about this building, I’ve never actually bothered to find out more about the place. It came as a shock when the newspapers ran a story saying two old sisters-- Dulcie and Vera Vaz lived in the house in abject penury.They had another sister -- a Joy Preston who lived on Albert Street.

A few years later a news report was published that a 75 year old woman residing on St Mark’s Road was stabbed to death by an unidentified person in her house early in the morning. “Dulce Vaz was killed in front of her 80-year-old sister Vera, who could do nothing except scream at the fleeing murderer.”

At the time I wrote stories for a column called Back and Forth in the Deccan Herald. And I was writing about the Tunbridge Building on Infantry Road. There I met Vera Vaz who had taken refuge in the hostel in Tunbridge as she was sure the felons would kill her next. She did not want to speak about Tera Vera and her past and did not want to disclose her whereabouts, fearful for her life.

Eileen in 1948 standing with her cousins infront of what was called the Manel Guest House then. Then my interest grew when Eileen, a friend who is on FB, and who lives in the UK wrote asking me to take pictures of the place, as she had visited Terra Vera as a child. She said it had been a beautiful place.

Reading up on the building I learned that it was built in 1943 by an Anglo-Indian lawyer EJ Vaz, and on his death the house was gifted to his spinster daughters, Vera and Dulce Vaz. The report went on to say “ it is among the top most haunted places in Bangalore.” Vera was an English tutor, while Dulce a piano instructor. The two sisters were the only occupants of the house until 2002, when the tragic murder happened.”

Quoting the report --“Dulce, the 75-year-old younger sister was killed by a youth in front of Vera, the elder sister, who broke into the house at midnight. It was well past midnight when Vera, who was asleep, heard her sister scream for help. She came out of her room and saw a youth running away after assaulting her sister. She shouted at him, but could not do anything else.” “Dulce was buried in the house and Vera was asked to move to a safer location by the police. The case remains unsolved to this day,” said the report. This was the era when Bangalore was rocked by several murders of old and infirm residents, who lived alone in their large bungalows.

The house was demolished in February 2014. Precious belongings in the house like the furniture and a vintage car remained untouched till then. Also, the stories continued and I laughed when one of the kids in my class wanted to do a story on the ‘haunted’ house. He said people who reside around have heard screams, a face appearing out of the windows, colder temperature in a few rooms and the sound of a piano being played. Terra Vera, the ‘haunted house’ on St Mark’s Road, was finally razed in 2019 and my picture shows the new glitzy glass and chrome structure. The 10,000-sq ft property was the butt of endless spooky stories and finally could have been sold for Rs 20 crore. Who got the money is anyone’s guess.