Eastern Star
Lakeshore home is shrine to Indian culture
By Betsy Lehndorff, News Staff Writer

On weekdays, Manick Sorcar lives the quintessential fast-paced life of a businessman, pitching his company's electrical engineering services to multimillion dollar clients. But evenings and weekends, he steps into a peaceful haven and leaves the corporate world far behind. Sorcar, a native of Calcutta, goes home to modern India without ever leaving Colorado.
To recharge, he kicks off his shoes at the door of the two-story stucco home he designed on Hyatt Lake in Arvada. He steps into the cool, marble-tiled foyer and immerses himself in his culture. With his wife, Shikha, and their daughters, Piya and Payal, he experiences his native country's languages, dress, paintings, music and cuisine

A striking green stucco exterior makes the home a standout in the neighborhood. The main entrance is through a portico supported by faceted columns. An arched overhang plays against stair-stepped glass blocks above the door. Trios of windows are topped with arches, and under the eaves more arches appear in relief on the stucco walls. Once inside, modern India is abundant in the cool and open interior.

A large elephant-headed god called Lord Ganesh greets visitors. Carved out of the trunk of a mango tree, it rests in a large niche built into a wall. Near it is the most important room in the home: the shrine room. Although unassuming, with modern oak cabinets along one wall, it is the heart of family life. The cabinets are opened before prayers to reveal images of the gods of education, wealth and wisdom. "When people go out, they pray to God at the shrine and then they go," Sorcar says

Against this backdrop, the couple has placed Sorcar's paintings of Indian villagers along with bright pillows and textiles from India.
In the center of the home, a large circular stairway goes from the basement to the second floor in a fluid sweep of oak. Through its center is a 29-foot cascade of plastic tubes filled with tiny lights -- a high-tech chandelier Sorcar designed for the space. "It's like going through space and looking at all the glittering stars," Sorcar says.

An adjacent deck overlooks the lake and the mountains and serves as an outdoor dining room, Sorcar says.

Elements of the nearby lake and mountains are picked up in an elegant upstairs master bath. Reflections of glass block in multiple mirrors give the illusion of water sparkling in sunshine. The mirrors are topped with additional glass cut to look like the mountains.

"Basically, the Indian traditionally will tell you that rooms were made for people and not furniture," Wilson says in a telephone interview from London. Much of early Indian decor was utilitarian, he says, until the Moguls arrived in the country 600 years ago. "They brought a far more aesthetic sense to lifestyles -- a love of gardens. They were great patrons of the art for painting, jewelry and clothes. It was really only the coming of the British that brought rooms filled with furniture." In his book, Wilson conveys a sense of what India is like today compared with the United States. "Color and design touch every part of life in a country in which the visitor's senses are sent reeling, additionally provoked by boundless sounds, odors and movements," he writes.

(The End of Cover Story of the Rocky Mountain News)