The Banyan Pererenan

You do not drive to The Banyan Pererenan. Cars stop about a hundred metres short and somebody walks you the rest of the way, which is the price of a lane this quiet in the middle of Pererenan and, once you are through the gate, plainly worth paying. The terrace runs the length of the pool under a pergola of wavy natural timber battens that throws a striped shadow across grey-and-white triangle tiles. One side is carved sandstone with arched niches lit from inside them and a Buddha head at the far end; the other side is water, with a raised round stone daybed at the shallow end and a rattan egg chair hanging above it.

The house opens straight onto that water. At one end the pool runs up under the open kitchen window, where three stone stools stand in the water at a counter — breakfast without getting out. Behind the glass, the ground floor is a single timber-lined room: a live-edge dining table with woven chairs, a full-size pool table, a slim black steel stair with a cable balustrade, and, dropped below the floor, the thing the villa is really built around. The sunken cinema is an L of built-in seating lit from underneath, planting along its back ledge, carved timber drum stools for drinks and a projector screen that comes down across the whole wall, with a Sonos system to go with it.

Both bedrooms take a king and both are properly dark — blackout blinds, heavy air conditioning, en-suite bathrooms lined in emerald mosaic with a basin hollowed out of a timber log. One opens through sliding doors onto a balcony above the trees; the other has a timber-slat headboard wall and full-height glass onto the greenery. Beside the lounge there is a desk with a proper office chair, two hundred megabits and an ethernet point, which is not something villas this size usually bother with. Out on the timber deck a hot tub and a copper-clad barrel of an ice bath stand side by side, for whichever order you prefer to take them in.

Because nothing on four wheels reaches the gate, a scooter is less a service here than a necessity, and the concierge will have one waiting. The other booking worth making is a private cook: the outdoor kitchen sits at the pool edge with its own hob and sink, so dinner gets made a couple of steps from where it is eaten. Housekeeping comes daily and the pool and garden are kept without anyone noticing. Four guests, two kings, a cinema and a pool table make this a villa for two couples who intend to stay in rather than go out — which is just as well, since the walk back from the road is more agreeable at nine than at three in the morning.

The Banyan Pererenan is a small villa given the equipment of a much larger one: a cinema, a pool table, a hot tub, an ice bath and an outdoor kitchen, all within about forty paces of one another. WOODS is three minutes off, ST ALi four, and the sand at Pererenan seven.