The semicircular arched entrance to the Videsh Dak Bhavan has a porch with wrought iron ornamentation, though it is partially hidden behind the India Post hoarding fixed at the front. The porch project outwards and has a sloping roof.
The vertical accent provided by the tower at Karfule is distinctly Art Deco. The tower originally served as a clock tower. The clock was replaced by the Caltex sign, and since 1978, the Hindustan Petroleum logo. The Caltex sign remains with the Sequeira family as part of the pump's historical archive of objects.
Neville House is owned by the Wadia Group and named after its former chairman, Neville Wadia (1911-1996). In 1952, he succeeded his father Ness Wadia as chairman of Bombay Dyeing, which started in 1879. Under Neville Wadia's leadership, Bombay Dyeing became one of India's largest textile producers and one of its most recognizable consumer brands.
Videsh Dak Bhavan, also known as the Foreign Post Office (FPO), is in Irwin House, named after Lord Irwin, Viceroy of India (1926-31). The FPO facilitates the import and export of goods by Post Parcels. The Postal Department also provides access to Customs for examination, assessment, clearance, etc., of parcels that arrive via mail.
The triple-arched Ballard Bunder Gatehouse was built in 1920 to commemorate the repositioning of the Ballard Pier by the Bombay Port Trust. After Independence, the gatehouse became part of the Naval Dockyard but fell into disuse. In 2005, the Western Naval Command restored the building, converting it into a nautical-themed museum.
Karfule is the only Art Deco petrol pump in Mumbai and one of two (Construction House is the other) buildings in Ballard Estate built in the late 1930s. The kiosk-like structure, with its octagonal canopy and star-shaped terrazzo tiles in the interior, was designed by GB Mhatre and Architectural Studio, one of the most prolific Art Deco architects of the era.
Semi-circular arched windows with moldings and projecting imposts on the ground floor of Darabshaw House which was once open and let in natural light and air. The sealing of the windows is symptomatic of changes made in buildings at Ballard Estate in order to accommodate modern building requirements, like the installation of air conditioning units.
The imposing Marshall Sons and Co. is a corner building at the intersection of Shoorji Vallabhdas Road and Shahid Bhagat Singh Marg. The building was designed in Edwardian Baroque style by architect Charles Frederick Stevens, son of the late Frederick W Stevens who had been Mumbai's most celebrated architect during the Victorian Gothic phase.
Keystone with floral scrolls emerging from it over oeil-de-boeuf (Ox eye window) at the Marshall Sons and Co. building. The use of exaggerated keystones was a typical Neo-Baroque architectural detail used in buildings from the Edwardian era (1901–1910).
Karfule is word-play on 'Car Fuel'. The pump opened in 1938 and is run by the Sequeira family, now in its third generation. The business was started by Gabriel Sequeira, who had immigrated from Goa in the late 1920s. Until his death in 2001, at 98 years of age, Gabriel Sequeira remained actively involved in the Karfule business, visiting the pump regularly.