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A legacy built over generations
From Nalagarh in 1795 to the Mall in Shimla in 1873, and everything the family has built since.
Origins
Some businesses are founded.
Ours was handed on.
The family's story begins in Nalagarh in 1795, in the foothills below the ranges that would later become home. Nearly eighty years later, in 1873, Gainda Mull Hem Raj was established in Shimla. The town was still taking shape, and it was a place where goods, people and ideas from across the subcontinent converged.
That first shop dealt in provisions, confectionery and travelling goods. It served residents, officers, traders and visitors alike, and it built its name on something plain and durable. People knew what they would get, and they knew who stood behind it.
Every generation since has taken that instinct into new territory. Real estate followed retail, because the family understood this land and how to build on it. Hospitality followed both, because after a century and a half of serving people who come to Shimla, welcoming them properly was the natural next step.
Milestones
How the story unfolds
Seven moments that mark the movement from a single shop to the group as it stands today.
Roots in Nalagarh
The family's beginnings in the hills of what is now Himachal Pradesh, a foundation of trade and community that predates the business itself.
Gainda Mull Hem Raj is established
A shop on the Mall in Shimla dealing in provisions, chocolates, confectionery and travelling goods, serving both wholesale and retail customers.
A name on the Mall
Through the decades that followed, the shop became a fixture of Shimla life, the place people came to for what they could not find anywhere else in the hills.
Into property and development
Retail widened into real estate, with property and development across Shimla and the surrounding districts, built on relationships the family had already earned.
Entry into hospitality
Marigold Holiday Cottages opens in Mashobra, now Marigold Sarovar Portico, marking the family's first major step into welcoming guests to the hills.
Cafe 1873 opens on the Mall
The heritage of Gainda Mull Hem Raj expressed in a contemporary food and beverage business, a few steps from where it all started.
Cafe 1873 comes to the Ridge
A second cafe at one of Shimla's most recognisable landmarks, and the newest chapter of a very old story.
Approach
Evolution,
not acquisition.
A group can grow by buying companies, or it can grow the way a family does, one capability at a time, each new venture drawing on what the last one taught us. Ours has always grown the second way.
It is why a business that started with provisions can today run a hotel in Mashobra, and why the people we work with often stay with us across decades.
See what we have builtContinue reading
The businesses we operate today, and what the family stands for after a century and a half in Shimla.