Lukshmi Vilas Palace, the magnificent residence of the royal family of Baroda was built by Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III in 1890 with Major Charles Mant as the chief architect.Until the 1860s the family still occupied the old Nazarbaug palace, a tall building with an encrustation of pavilions and kiosks on the roof which the French traveller, Rousselet, found very disquieting: 'The mass of buildings, planted on the summit of an edifice almost entirely of wood, whose foundations were soaking in a damp soil, betokened great audacity on the part of the architects, and still more confidence on that of the king'.