The Dune Eco Village

What does actor-singer Marianne Faithfull, fashion designers Manish Arora and Christian Dior, actor Jean-Marc Barr, singer Scarlet Johansson, designer Lulu Guinness and actress Sharmila Tagore have in common? They have all been smitten by the natural and rustic charm of The Dune Eco Village. And, of course, by the charming and absolutely down-to-earth Frenchman Dimitri Klien, its founder-creator.

For the uninitiated, it will be great consolation to learn that the food you eat is all organically grown on the premises (and on Dimitri’s 100-acre organic farm in Kodaikanal). And, the bed that you lie on or the chairs that you sit on are all made from re-cycled wood. And, again, the various buildings within the 35-acre property are either made of re-cycled wood, palm leaf thatch or the walls (made of handmade bricks) are plastered with lime or mud. You can’t get eco friendlier than that!

That’s how Dimitri conceived The Dune in 2001. A once-high profile advertising professional who sold his company, FKGB to Omnicom and decided to settle down in Auroville, answered to his restless entrepreneurship calling and bought up 35 acres of coastal land about 15 kilometers from Pondicherry to make this dream come true. "It took me two years to decontaminate my system before I could think of venturing into something new," says Dimitri. What took him eventually three years to build on the barren sands on the East Coast was completely destroyed in the Tsunami of 2004 and Dimitri, with his never-say-die will power, built it all back to shipshape in no time.

Here, he put up one cottage after the other, each a unique dwelling by itself, and developed a eco-village that blends so much with nature that you really don’t miss the lack of cable television or telephones in the rooms. Spread widely over the beachfront terrain, these cottages are a unique blend of modern comfort (read: western) and the advantages of traditionalism (read: Indian). For instance, the thatched roof of one of the cottages makes the interior so cool even at the height of summer, that you don’t need a ceiling fan, let alone airconditioning. Beds enclosed in nets keep the omnipresent mosquitos away.

Some cottages offer the privacy of an independent house plus your own space with an open bedroom encircled by a high wall, semi-open bath, tiled roof with a courtyard in the centre to let rain or sun in. Moving around the ‘village’ is on bicycles – each cottage is provided with a minimum of two. Of course, for the lazy or elderly, Dimitri has an electric vehicle for use on request.

The Dune lives upto its name in the ‘eco’ category. Says Dimitri, “Most of the chairs in the restaurant are from a broken down ship. The tables are all made from old wood. The doors of all the cottages are recycled wood. All the waste from the kitchen is turned to compost for the garden. The used water from the cottages and kitchen is recycled for watering the garden and lawns. Hot water for the property is made using solar energy. We don’t provide hair dryers and instant water heaters in the rooms; they consume a lot of electricity. Unfortunately, being in the coastal, cyclone prone area, we cannot install a regular windmill. But we are exploring the possibility of putting up a low level one for pumping up water. We would love to go solar for all our electricity needs, but the costs involved are so prohibitively high, that it doesn’t compare with the electricity costs.”

Dimitri’s 100-acre farm in Kodaikanal grows vegetables and fruits, coffee and produces dairy products. A large part of the 35-acre Dune is set aside for a variety of produce for daily consumption in the resort. “Our entire requirement of rice comes from our own paddy fields. We do not use any chemical fertilisers or pesticides at The Dune or at Kodaikanal. We even have workshops for local farmers on the use of organic manure and fertilisers for their crops,” says Dimitri.

Dimitri has an eye for arts and crafts, a trait he picked up from his mother who was an expert restorer of art and artefacts. He came across a ‘mandap’ being dismantled and picked it up; this now serves as the reception area. Similarly, a temple was discarding their old chariot; Dimitri picked up the pieces and it now lies in a heap waiting for his in-house army of carpenters to lay their hand on. “Many a time, I come across unique things and blindly pick them up. Later, something will evolve around it and it will find a rightful place in The Dune. Many an item in most of the cottages is picked up like that," says Dimitri. Somewhere amidst all this is Dimitri's vintage Studebaker, a 1955 red and white 4-door version, one of the very, very few in India. "It has almost everything in its original state, although I picked it up in a junk condition from an Auroville resident who couldn't care less," points out Dimitri. He plans to showcase this in a prominent place in The Dune, as driving it around will pollute the air due to its high fuel consumption.

The Dune has a huge water tank at the height of a two-storey building. One day, when Dimitri was on top of that to inspect the tank, he was taken in by the view of the sea and the surroundings. The architect-designer in him quickly conjured up a spacious bedroom on the third floor with a mezzanine floor as a living room. The panoramic view through the vast sheet of glass, of the Bay of Bengal and the green cover surrounding it, is something that has to be experienced.

“The Tsunami destroyed every bit of the old Dune and filled the entire area with two feet of muck from the sea. It took me almost a year to clean up all the mess, re-plant the vegetation and build all these – 51 rooms, villas and bungalows that comprise of the Eco Village – to make it what it is today. The work is still not complete; the evolution continues and every morning I get up with another bright idea to implement, another concept to achieve. I want this to be a 100% eco-friendly place and help in a small way to save our eco system from destruction,” says Dimitri. Today, The Dune has rolling greens interspersed with sand dunes, swaying palm trees, scores of shrubs and plants, with winding pathways laid with gravel and mud - no asphalt is used anywhere.

Dimitri's efforts have not gone un-noticed. Le Official Voyage has voted The Dune as one of the 100 best beach hotels in the world and has declared their Spa as the best on earth! Harper's Bazaar has also found their Spa as the best on earth. Lonely Planet talks about The Dune's 'responsible tourism' while India Today has rated them as having the best honeymoon room in India. Geo Environment's poll in the tourism sector is currently on and The Dune Eco Village is the only entry from India.