Villa Bimini

The lane into Villa Bimini runs off the Tibubeneng back roads a hundred and twenty metres from the Pepito Market corner, and the gate gives no warning of what is behind it. The house opens onto a long pool with a cushioned seating pit sunk into the middle of the water, close enough to the grass that you can hand a drink across. A thatched parasol shades two timber loungers on the lawn, banana palms crowd the boundary wall, and two floors of white rendered arches face the water from the far side. After dark the pit lights up gold from below and the courtyard behaves like another room.

Indoors the ground floor is a single volume that lifts two storeys over the dining table. The lounge sits in a pit of its own, a low white sectional wrapping three sides under a wall of arched plaster niches holding ceramics and carved wood, the television mounted on a slab of rough natural stone. Beyond it the dining table is a fluted white oval ringed with rattan-backed chairs beneath a cluster of woven pendants, and the kitchen carries on behind a timber-slat screen: a pale stone island with bar stools, a long run of joinery, an oven, a dishwasher and enough equipment that cooking is a real option. Carved paddles hang above the counter.

A staircase climbs to a walkway with a glass balustrade that runs above the pool and looks out over tiled rooftops and palms. Four bedrooms open off it and off the ground floor, each with a king bed, a ceiling fan turning under the air conditioning and a bathroom of its own; the master’s bed sits on a rendered platform in an arched recess with doors to the terrace. The bathrooms are the surprise — one in soft pink scalloped tile with a freestanding tub under a backlit arched mirror, the others in sage-green vertical tile with brass tapware and oval timber mirrors. Steps from the master, a jacuzzi is set into a timber roof deck below a canopy of split bamboo.

Dinner tends to end up at the pool pit, which is where a private cook earns their keep: the outdoor counter alongside has a stainless grill, a sink and a green patterned splashback, so the whole meal happens outdoors. The roof deck takes a massage table well once the sun drops off it, and because the villa sits in the lanes rather than on the sand, most guests keep a car and driver for the run down to the beach clubs. Housekeeping comes through every morning; the water and the planting get attention a couple of times each week; and there is room to park inside the gate. Eight guests in four equal king suites suits two or three couples, or a family who want the lawn.

Villa Bimini is an unusually sociable house for its size: one big room downstairs, one long pool with a lounge sitting in it, and a roof deck with a jacuzzi for whoever wakes first. The cafes and shops of Berawa are a short walk from the gate, and the rest of Canggu is a ten-minute drive.