Rabindranath Tagore spends the summer in Santiniketan.

Santiniketan is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town in Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India, approximately 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, and later expanded by his son Rabindranath Tagore whose vision became what is now a university town with the creation of Visva-Bharati.

In 1863, Debendranath Tagore took on permanent lease 20 acres (81,000 m2) of land, with two chhatim (Alstonia scholaris) trees, at a yearly payment of Rs. 5, from Bhuban Mohan Sinha, the talukdar of Raipur, Birbhum. He built a guest house there and named it Shantiniketan (the abode of peace). Gradually, the whole area came to be known as Shantiniketan.

Binoy Ghosh says that Bolpur was a small place in the middle of the 19th century. It grew as Shantiniketan grew. There was a chhatim tree under which Debendranath used to meditate. Inspired by The Crystal Palace built originally in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851 and later relocated, Debendranath constructed a 60-foot × 30-foot hall for Brahmo prayers.

The roof was tiled and the floor had white marble, but the rest of the structure was made of glass. From its earliest days, it was a great attraction for people from all around. Rabindranath Tagore first visited Shantiniketan in 27 January, 1878 when he was 17 years old.

In 1888, Debendranath dedicated the entire property for the establishment of a Brahmavidyalaya through a trust deed. In 1901, Rabindranath started a Brahmacharyaashrama and it came to be known as Patha Bhavana from 1925. Founded in 1921 by Rabindranath Tagore, Visva Bharati was declared to be a central university and an institute of national importance, in 1951.

Information drawn from Wikipedia