Located at the intersection of Churiwalan and Bazaar Sitaram, stands the neglected structure that saw the high profile wedding of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with Kamala Kaul in 1916.

The young Nehru arrived as groom to this manor which was then owned by Kamala’s family. After Kaul’s Kashmiri-Pandit kin migrated to Delhi in the 1850s, they chose to build their haveli in this very locality of Delhi-6.
Swarup Narain ki Haveli, as it was called, used to be a grand structure with all the characteristics of a
traditional Shahjahanabadi Haveli, such as the main entrance decorated with motifs, a courtyard, jharokhas, a tehkhana, a large hall etc.

While 1 Safdarjung Road, 10 Janpath and Anand Bhawan are the famous addresses of Nehru-Gandhi family that got media attention and now have been converted to museums, this Haveli failed to get any media attention and fell into ruins. “Nobody recognises it as Nehru’s property anymore. One might be standing in front of the Haveli and still fail to recognise it”, says a local.

The Kaul family had sold the Haveli in the early or mid 1970s and the new owner failed to maintain it, which led to its collapse. As the property remained largely unused over the years, it started crumbling. A part of the property collapsed in the 1980s and another significant bit slumped in 90s. None of its features has survived the ravages of time by today and with continuous dumping of trash, the place looks like a mere stack of wreckage.

The locals also say that the Congress party has long been trying to convert the remnants either into a school or library but has not been successful in it.

The present owners of the Haveli are not known as there are no surviving records and hence the place stands disputed. According to locals, the Delhi High Court had issued a stay after a petition against illegal construction was filed in 2018.
Since then, part of the Haveli is sealed and locked, and the compound is closed to public.