This year marks the 50th anniversary since Maharana Raj Shri Pratapsinhji — father of Member of Parliament Digvijay Sinh — traded the property to the then US consul general William Turner, to settle some estate duties levied, for an un-princely sum of Rs 1.72 million. “I had read a little about the property. My wife and I arrived in the night, but I remember looking at the sea and how beautiful it was,” says consul general Michael Owen, who has presided over affairs since August two years ago.

The transfer of property and power has been sealed but the relations between the generations of subsequent royals and consul-generals has been characterised by mutual respect and bonhomie. “When we met the members of the Maharaja’s extended family, they told me that my daughter sleeps in what used to be the Maharaja’s room. We also wondered about these heavy hooks on the ceiling. They would hang swings from up there,” he says. The hooks survive, but the swings are no longer there.

Digvijay Sinh, a man with a keen sense of history, and irony, said on the anniversary that the secretarial staff rooms and servants’ quarters now form the visa section of the consulate. “I’m quite glad that today thousands of Indians get the opportunity to feed others from where we were fed,” he said. Sinh’s exquisite essay, The Saga of Wankaner House (framed outside the doors that lead to the consul general’s residence), includes personal anecdotes and facts, and is written with a sense of loss for an irrecoverable past.

“Overlooking the seafront is a beautiful swimming pool where I swam for the first time since 1957 with my son on July 4, 1993, courtesy of consul general Charles Mast,” he writes, wistfully, adding, “It was here that I had been coached in diving by an Olympic ace, Hill Gardner.” He also remembers World War II; Bombay teeming with GIs, Aussies and British troops. “From the top floor we watched naval ships entering the Bombay harbour,” he writes.