Who wants to be stuck in a snarl of city traffic? I do, occasionally. Delighted to slow-halt for the eyes to feast on a building as breathtakingly beautiful as it is shockingly neglected. Awed by Adenwalla Mansion at Chowpatty, I find fascinating this entire stretch, where "chau-pati" - "four paths" - channelled tide flows till the western foreshore was reclaimed.

With a magnificent dome supposed to be inspired by Oxford's neo-classical Radcliffe Camera building, Adenwalla Mansion's crumbling charms are happily not solitary. Rowed alongside in Renaissance Revivalist style, Noor Mansion and Orient Club rose at the start of the 1900s, separated by low iron railings bordered with jackfruit, white jamun and badam boughs.