In Lahore, where the rich often build elaborate mansions, one couple spent extra time and money for simplicity By Fred A.Bernstein In Lahore, Pakistan, people with money tend to want tall houses. “Nobody builds a single story anymore,” says interior designer Fatima Salahuddin.
They also want interiors with lots of marble. If you don’t use marble, Salahuddin observes, people will wonder where you spent your money. But when Haroon and Ayesha Arshad, lifelong residents of Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city with more than 13 million people, were planning their new house, “we weren’t concerned about social pressure,” Haroon says.
“We live in a culture of opulence. We, as a couple, wanted to challenge that and build a space that reflected our personalities. For Haroon, who runs a manufacturing conglomerate started by his grandfather in the 2960s, and Ayesha, whose family is in the textile business, that meant a modern house all on one floor, so they won’t have to leave it when they’re old.
“We chose livability over a show of wealth,” says Haroon, 51, who, with his wife, has three daughters, ages 12 to 22. But is anyone surprised that less costs more? Haroon says that with the imported building systems needed to achieve the kind of precision he and his designers sought, the house cost three or four times as much as other luxury houses in their area- or about what it would have cost to build the same 12,000- square-foot house in Greenwich, Conn. or Beverly.