The water tower in Wakdewadi on the Old Pune-Mumbai highway looks as though it was the result of an editing error in a Disney fairytale movie. What appears like a small fortress – with little symmetric crevices appearing like windows and a gallery-type viewing structure at the top – leaves onlookers wondering as the patterned grey stone structure is a far cry from its vibrant, urban surroundings even as it bears testament to its strong foundation. The Grade-2 heritage site is a water tower that once supplied to the Garden Reach mansion owned by the renowned Sassoon family of Baghdadi Jews which has built several institutions in Pune and Mumbai. Currently, Garden Reach is owned by the Jehangir family. Sassoon family and Water Reach The Sassoons were an influential trading family who set base in Mumbai after the patriarch David Sassoon, who belonged to a family that managed the treasury of the Ottoman rulers, migrated from Baghdad to India to escape ‘Daoud Pasha’s plunder’. Garden Reach is mentioned in many texts as the ‘summer residence of the Sassoons’ and an ideal place for boating and leisure activities with a maintained garden catering to the tastes of the town’s influential people. As per the Bombay Gazetteer of 1885, the annual regatta in the 1880s would be held on a stretch between “Rosherville to a point opposite to Garden Reach”. Archival photos of the Garden Reach mansion show a manor built in classic Gothic style, in essence similar to other structures erected by the British in the city but differentiated by its massive scale and grandeur. Even before building a residence in the “cool Malabar hills” in proximity to other influential Parsi families, David Sassoon set up the Garden Reach residence “among the shady trees in Poona” as a summer mansion, and only completed building his residence in the Malabar hills when Poona’s sanitation became an issue, as written in the book ‘The Sassoons’ by Stanley Jackson in 1910. The mansion is under a veneer of mystery today as it is a private property inaccessible to the public. However, ‘A handbook for travellers in India, Burma, and Ceylon’ written by John Murray in 1911 provides a description of the mansion after it was built: “At 300 yds. from the Engineering College is Sir Edward Sassoon’s mansion, called Garden Reach. It was built between 1862 and 1864, and cost ; 8o,ooo. Permission to view is usually granted on application when the family is not in residence. The gardens are beautiful, and extend along the banks of the river.” “The rooms in the principal house are floored with marble. The fine dining-room is connected with the house by a long, open gallery. Beside it is an open room, with sides of carved wood, where the family dine during the Feast of Tabernacles. The ceiling of the drawing-room is beautifully decorated by Poona artists. It has a full-length portrait of Mr David Sassoon, Sir Edward's grandfather. A fountain in the garden and the water-tower should be noticed,” it added. Albert Sassoon Albert Abdullah David Sassoon, son of the patriarch David Sassoon, often shuttled between Bombay and Poona with his family, and spent most of his time at the Garden Reach as mentioned in Jackson’s book. ‘The Sassoon Dynasty’ by Cecil Roth, published in 1941, talks a bit about Albert Sassoon, his residences in Mumbai and Poona and how the power wielded by the family could be estimated from their properties in Mumbai and then Poona. “David Sassoon’s eldest son, the heir to great wealth and accustomed from his early manhood to the idea of using it, had ambitious conceptions. In the new India, where merchants and industrialists were beginning to trespass on the status of at least the lesser Rajahs, he found ample outlet for his luxurious tastes, and he began to play a great role in Society.” “He had superb villas at Garden Reach, Poona, and at Mahabaleshwar high on the hills above it, where he lavishly entertained fellow fugitives from the summer heat of the plains. But his principal residence was the incongruously named and incongruously designed mansion of Sans Souci, in the outskirts of Bombay, modelled on an Italian mansion of the Renaissance and called after Frederick the Great’s retreat at Potsdam,” Roth wrote. Shreeameya Phadnis, heritage consultant at Pune’s Studio Gestalt, spoke about the particular architectural style of the water tower. “Apart from the Wakdewadi water tower, another prominent historical premise in Pune with a water tower is the Pune Daftar This water tower is in the Gothic revival architectural style, popular in the 1800s, though we can also observe influences of some other styles like Italian,” he said. “The Gothic revival style developed in a period when the British government had gained stability to build structures which reflected their reach and might, primarily in stone, which denoted permanence. Jewish influential families like Sassoon often interacted with the British and adopted their lifestyle in parts, so their residences have this Gothic revival influence I feel,” Phadnis added. The water tower appears to have been alienated from the mansion today, though at one point it provided water to the occasional residents of this summer abode. It stands tall in the history of Pune, offering clues to the development of engineering as well as the evolution of the city’s public infrastructure in every period.
