Casa Kami

Jalan Jantuk Angsa is one of the narrow lanes running inland from Pererenan, and Casa Kami is a gate in a white wall halfway along it. What opens behind that gate is not a house so much as a courtyard: two single-storey wings under pitched roofs face each other across a long pool, their walls almost entirely black-framed glass, and at the far end a wall of banana leaf, bamboo and heliconia closes the whole thing off from the lane. A thatched parasol leans over two timber loungers on the pale stone at one side. The pool has a broad shallow step cut into one end, the width of a small terrace, which is where most of the day gets spent.

The living wing is a single room and its ceiling is the surprise: a white vault carried on exposed black steel trusses, with track lights running along the ridge and two fans turning slowly beneath. Along two walls a built-in banquette in green-grey sits below floor level, cushioned and lit from underneath, facing a large screen and a wall of framed prints. The long timber dining table stands beside it with black mesh chairs, and behind that the kitchen runs as an open counter with a horizontal slot of window above it, so whoever is at the stove is looking out at the planting. Fold the glass away and the room and the courtyard become one.

Two bedrooms, one in each wing, each with a queen bed and its own bathroom. They are quiet, white rooms with rust-orange throws, a run of timber joinery, rattan baskets stacked on a shelf above the bed and a handful of framed prints; one has a heavy reclaimed-timber barn door on a black rail into the bathroom beyond. The bathrooms are pale plaster with cast stone basins, oversized black-framed mirrors and a tall slot of window at the shower filled with heliconia leaves, so you shower in green light. Black-out blinds and a ceiling fan in each room mean nobody wakes with the sun unless they want to.

The dining table seats far more than four, which is the invitation: the concierge’s private chef cooks Indonesian, plans around allergies and works to whatever you ask for, and this is the room to do it in. Babysitters are vetted for English and experience, so an evening out is straightforward, and a change table can be put in before you arrive. There is no washing machine here, though there is a laundromat close by and the desk will handle it. A masseur will set up on the covered terrace beside the loungers. Two couples, or a family of four, will find this exactly the right size.

Casa Kami is a small house that never feels small, mostly because of that ceiling and the way both wings open onto the same stretch of water. It is quiet enough to read in and close enough to walk out of, and the shallow end of the pool has ruined more than one plan to go and see something.