For Jose Dominic, the transformation of Jew Town in Mattancherry is not merely about restoring a few old buildings. It is about bringing back the character of a neighbourhood that was once a vibrant residential hub of the Jewish community and giving it a new life as a distinctive heritage tourism destination.
The veteran Kerala hotelier, who built CGH Earth into a globally recognised responsible luxury brand, has restored two historic Jewish residences in Jew Town and converted them into boutique heritage stays. His intervention is now beginning to inspire other property owners in the neighbourhood to look beyond the conventional antique-shop model and consider hospitality as a way of preserving and bringing alive the area’s heritage.
“When Jews were there, it was a residential area. Jews lived there. When they left, the whole street became antique shops,” Dominic told TravelBiz Monitor. Today,”There are around 15 Kashmiri-run shops in Jew Town selling largely similar merchandise,” he added.
His restoration efforts have been aimed to bring the residential character back in a different form — not as Jewish residences, but as accommodation for travellers.
The first property Dominic acquired was the four-room AB Salem House, which had remained with the Salem family for seven generations. AB Salem, after whom the house is named, was known as the ‘Gandhian Jew’ for his participation in India’s freedom movement and strong association with leaders of the liberation struggle. The property was eventually inherited by siblings who had moved first to Europe and later to Canada. When they decided to sell, Dominic was their first choice among prospective buyers.
The second property, a six-room heritage stay, has an equally significant history. Dominic discovered through old records that the house was once the residence of Rahabi Ezekiel, a prominent Baghdadi Jewish merchant. Ezekiel, who made his fortune through the spice and opium trade, was also associated with two important landmarks of Jew Town. He was the one who donated Chinese tiles of the Pardesi Synagogue and one who built the clock tower with its Jewish, Latin and Malayalam faces.
The restoration was undertaken with an emphasis on retaining rather than reinventing the properties. “We restored it to the best of the memory of the Jews we knew. We didn’t want to renovate or improve it, but put it back for what it would have been,” Dominic said.
That meant retaining original features wherever possible while adapting the buildings to contemporary hospitality requirements. At one point, for instance, layers of modern flooring were removed to reveal the original terracotta tiles beneath them.
Dominic has also converted an old spice godown in the same lane into an art gallery, The Plav. The idea originated from a completely different project at his ancestral home in Madkakunnu near Pala, where a decades-old mahogany tree had to be felled after its trunk began rotting. The wood was sliced and eventually transformed into furniture and artworks as he didn’t see selling the wood to merchants wouldn’t fetch much. The first exhibition at The Plav featured these works by Jose Dominic curated by a young art curator from Mumbai.
But perhaps the more significant development for Jew Town is the inspirational element that Dominic’s restoration projects unleashed in the neighbourhood. More and more antique shop owners are now considering conversion of their properties into boutique hotels and cafes. Dominic himself has persuaded an antique dealer to convert his showroom into a 10-room boutique hotel which would be ready by the first quarter of 2027. This will create a cluster of around 25 rooms along the same street.
“Others coming in is not a competition. It would complement,” Dominic said, expressing the hope that more inventory in the same class and category would create enough traction for the destination among tour operators and travel agents, who are currently reluctant to include the area in their brochures because of supply issues.
His larger ambition is to see Jew Town evolve into a destination capable of standing alongside established tourism areas in Kerala. “We want to make Jew Town compete with Fort Kochi and Munnar,” he said.
For Dominic, the restoration story is therefore not about a single hotel or gallery. It is about creating enough reasons for visitors to stay, eat, explore and experience the history of the neighbourhood — and, in the process, encouraging more property owners to unlock the heritage value of the place through tourism and hospitality.
“I want a few more cafes to open in the area so that people have choices to come,” he said. Dominic has opened a cafe serving Jew cuisine at the Ezekiel House which has become an instant hit. With the war in the far east playing spoilsport for tourism for Kerala, the Cafe at Ezekiel House has turned out to be the mainstay for Dominic.