Sat Burzam Ghor (House of Seven Gables)

The grandest of Margao's old Portuguese-Catholic mansions

The Sat Burzam Ghor — House of Seven Gables in Konkani — is the most celebrated of Margao's old fidalgos' houses, a two-storey mansion just off the Largo de Igreja whose remaining three gabled dormers, shell-paned windows, and carved wooden balconies represent the apex of late-Portuguese domestic architecture in Goa. The da Silva family still occupies part of it; the rest can be visited by prior arrangement.

Inside, the house has a large central hall with hand-painted floor tiles, antique furniture in the Indo-Portuguese style, family portraits, and a chapel that was central to the social life of the colonial Catholic quarter. The street façade is particularly striking in the early morning when the light catches the lattice of the oyster-shell windows — a building technique peculiar to Goa, where the translucent shells were used instead of glass from at least the 17th century.

things to do sight architecture
A story
The house was built in 1790 by Inácio Sebastião da Silva, secretary to the Portuguese Viceroy. It originally had seven gabled rooflines — a display of status and wealth unusual even by the standards of Goa's colonial aristocracy. By the 20th century four of the seven gables had been demolished or collapsed, leaving the three that still stand today, each one an exercise in Baroque and Rococo woodwork that took craftsmen years to complete.