A newly engineered host guest hydrogen bonded metal organic coordination compound, dichloridobis(1-ethyl-2,6-dimethylpyridinium-4-olate-kappa O)zinc(II) (EDMPZC), [C18H26Cl2N2O2Zn] has been designed and synthesized. Single crystals of dimensions (5 x 5 x 2 mm(3)) have been grown by slow evaporation technique. The unit cell dimensions and morphology are identified from single crystal XRD analysis. Further, it has been characterized by FT-IR absorption, FT-NMR spectroscopy, elemental analyses (CHN and XRF) and their thermal stability investigated following TG/DTA and DSC techniques. The thermal transport properties, thermal effusivity (e), thermal diffusivity (alpha), thermal conductivity (K) and heat capacity (C-p) have been measured by the photopyroelectric technique at room temperature. The laser damage threshold of the grown crystal was measured using Q-switched Nd:YAG laser (1064 nm, 10 ns, 10 Hz). The mechanical stability of the crystal has been studied from the Vicker's microhardness measurement. The UV absorption edge is 262 nm with a wide optical transmittance window covering the UV-Vis-NIR region and the optical band gap of the compound is found to be 3.5 eV. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.