Sanctum House

Turn off the Umalas lane into Gang P. Lingga and the arrival is an arched timber door set in a white rendered wall. Behind it the whole plot is one courtyard, and almost all of it is water: a long rectangular pool with pale stone coping, entry steps at the near end, running between white walls planted with dracaena, columnar palms and a stand of tall cactus. The house wraps two sides of it in white render and black-framed glass, two storeys, arched openings, no visible street. A warung and a coffee house sit a hundred and fifty metres away, which is the whole argument for Umalas in one sentence.

The ground floor is a single run of rooms behind steel-framed glass that folds back onto the pool deck. At one end a deep tufted sectional in oatmeal linen faces a wall-mounted screen across a round timber coffee table, with line-drawing artworks and pale ceramics on the plaster shelving behind. The middle is given to a curved white dining table and bouclé chairs under three sculptural dome pendants, and beyond that the kitchen: a white island with black-legged stools, woven rattan pendants overhead, an oven, a full set of dishes and wine glasses. There is a desk if work follows you here, and a hundred and seventy square metres in which to avoid it.

Three bedrooms sleep six, each with its own bathroom and air conditioning: two kings and a queen, all in the same restrained palette of chalk white, pale timber and woven cane. One king opens through glass doors onto a private balcony, where a timber daybed catches the first sun over the neighbouring palms and rooftops. The bathroom that everyone photographs belongs to the other king — twin basins on a fluted vanity, brass tapware, and a freestanding oval tub standing beneath a round porthole window set into a wall of tan-and-white geometric tile. The rest are quieter variations on the theme, with round mirrors, glass showers and arched niches cut into the plaster.

Staff come in daily to clean, and the pool and garden are looked after two or three times a week; a welcome drink, towels for both the pool and the bathroom, fast Wi-Fi, a safe and free parking inside the gate are all part of the stay, and someone is on hand around the clock to let you in. Everything else goes through the concierge — breakfast, a private cook, airport transfers, a car with or without a driver, scooters, massage on the terrace, a nanny, a pool fence, laundry. Two couples and a third traveller, or a family of six, fit this house without anyone drawing the short room.

Sanctum House is a small, precise piece of design that never strays from its palette: white render, pale timber, water and cactus. Mornings belong to the balcony daybed, afternoons to the shaded pergola, and the walk to coffee takes about two minutes. For a house this quiet, the whole of Canggu is remarkably close.