Villa Palm Tree

The gang runs off the Oberoi end of Seminyak between high white walls, and the gate opens on a lawn with a long rectangular pool laid down the middle of it. Coconut palms lean in from both banks and drop their shadows across the water, a carved stone figure stands at one corner, and stepping stones curve over the grass towards a two-storey house of old teak with a red pantile roof. Everything else is single storey and open sided, so the villa reads as a small compound rather than a building. It is a quiet residential lane, yet a cafe and bar sit fifty metres from the gate and Seminyak Beach is about a quarter of an hour on foot.

The heart of the place is a pavilion with no walls at all. A pitched roof of bamboo and alang-alang runs on heavy timber posts, ceiling fans turn slowly beneath it, and rolled bamboo blinds wait at the eaves for the afternoon sun. Teal-painted carved daybeds and sofas gather round a live-edge slab of timber on a glass base, facing straight out at the pool. Behind them a long reclaimed-timber table seats a crowd on black metal chairs, and the kitchen closes the far end with a poured-concrete island, bar stools pulled up to it and a wall of concrete bench for the cooking. Four hundred square metres of ground gives everybody somewhere to go.

Bedrooms sit in the wings on either side, four of them, each with a four-poster hung with white netting, air conditioning and a bathroom of its own. One has a red lacquered Chinese cabinet standing against a black timber headboard; another opens through tall reclaimed doors straight onto the grass; a third rises into a pitched alang-alang ceiling. The fourth is the one people remember, up an outside stair inside the teak loft house, panelled floor to roof in old boards with a shuttered window and a balcony that looks out over the Oberoi rooftops. The bathrooms are poured concrete throughout, with rough river-stone basins, open showers, pebble floors and bamboo ladders hung with towels.

Four staff keep it running: a maid, a villa manager, a pool man and a gardener, with daily housekeeping, free-flow drinking water and a concierge on hand from eight in the morning until eight at night. The maid will do the grocery run and cook a simple breakfast at no charge for the service, handing over the supermarket receipts so you pay only for the food itself. Parking is free on the property, which is rare this deep into Seminyak. With nine beds across four rooms and a garden this size, it suits two or three families travelling together, or a group who want the beach and the restaurants within walking distance.

What makes Villa Palm Tree work is the grass. Almost every villa in this part of Seminyak paves its garden to the wall, and here the pool sits in a lawn under real trees, with the pavilion open on every side and the teak loft catching the last of the light. Walk out of the gate and the restaurants begin.