Tooth Mountain is a unique organic farmstay amidst the flora and fauna of the Western Ghats, located in a rural area at Karjat, Maharashtra. The farmstay is one amongst the most effective hot-spots for an outing together with your dear ones, where your desire of reconnecting with nature will revive again.
The story behind Tooth Mountain Farm is quite enrapturing and inspiring. It all started when the owner of this captivating farmstay Shiv Sagar Chopra, a hospitality professional and farmer disclosed the reason behind the start of this organic farmstay. This 20 acre property belongs to the owner’s late grandfather, Dr. Ramanand Sagar, who was a filmmaker, writer, visionary and humanist.
The farmstay is a collective effort of the owner’s entire family with the motive of protecting nature and following solely the natural laws. The land acquisition started in the year 2006, when it was initially decided to convert it into a plant nursery. However, the land was already bought within the 70s.
An immense transition has been seen over the years when the makers of this farmstay expanded their villa from constructing a swimming pool around 2012-13 to pitching a man-made lake in 2010, where the rain water could be assembled and later receiving their first corporate booking in the year 2015.
The flower in the name
The farmstay consists of five uniquely styled, air-conditioned, suite-rooms. Within the initial years the villa consisted of two rooms, namely Parijat and Palash for the owner’s parents to come back over and stay on the weekends and later an outhouse was built consisting of two more rooms, now named Asmantak and Amaltas. The fifth room was constructed in the year 2016 with the name Basant Rani. All these rooms are named after flowering trees and finally in the year 2019, the farm switched to organic. Although they already stopped using chemicals on the farmstay since 2015.
The outhouse is situated next to the swimming pool whereas the main-villa has activities like games and only television set on the property.
An organic experience
The farmstay has varieties of farm-made products following the highest hygiene standards along with sustainable farming methods where they strictly restricted the use of any kind of chemicals or preservatives.
They provide a range of sun-dried pickles, chutneys, jams etc along with dairy products and several other Indian sweets. They also provide fresh hand-made gluten-free papadum.
The restaurant includes a rustic interior and is situated next to their multi-layered organic farm where they produce most of the vegetables. They also own a garden where they grow the indispensable herbs. The farmstay strongly encourages their visitors to try their veg-cuisines and follow traditional methods while preparing dairy products.
Tooth mountain offers plenty of amazing activities and adventures to the visitors from kayaking in the lake to village tours. They also offer cycling to Hatnoli village, indoor games, swimming, a tour to their nursery, a visit to their bird pen and peacock life warehouse.
The roadmap
“We had a lot of problems with the land acquisition which took almost 15 years to acquire. So, we started around 2005, we had some little ancestral lands in the front which we had the advantage of, which we had from the 70s,” shared Shiv.
He adds “There were small pockets of land and all around which we had to acquire about 10-15 small small pockets and on each 7/12(SatBara) Utara we had around 400-500 names which took many years to meet those people and negotiate with them and get all the names removed from the different 7/12 Utaras and there were lot of squatter on the land, encroachment on the land in making the compound wall about 2 and a half years.”
Shiv told us how it had been an enormous challenge for them to ascertain the farm in an exceedingly remote area where working is slightly tough due to its lack of professionalism. They faced problems while negotiating with the local bodies and it had been also very challenging for them to deal with the local issues. Moreover, they faced staffing issues in the begginning.
Besides adding more cottages, the farmstay is planning on adding an alternative treatment spa and wellness centre. They have also promised to feature more sporting facilities and camping sites for both the sports and nature enthusiasts.
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