Villa Polanco

You reach Villa Polanco from behind the Avocado Factory, which means the coffee queue and the whole restless middle of Canggu are already outside the gate. Behind it the noise stops. An arched timber door opens into a walled courtyard where a plunge pool sits under a run of thatched pergola on rough timber posts, two black-and-white striped loungers and a scalloped parasol on the pale stone beside it, banana palms and bougainvillea pushing over a bamboo screen at the back. The house is white and rendered, two storeys, with black steel-framed glazing along the ground floor and a pair of small balconies above. It is a Mediterranean idea in a Balinese lane, and it holds together.

Inside, the ground floor is a single room around a sunken lounge. The seating is built in, an L of white render with deep pale cushions and a couple of rattan drum tables in the middle of it, dropped a step below the floor so that everyone sits low and facing the water. A smart television is set into the wall above. Behind the lounge a staircase of the same white render climbs past a row of arched niches, and the kitchen runs along the far side with a terrazzo island, a white coral-stone splashback lit from beneath a shelf of glassware, an oven and a hob. The dining table is timber with rattan chairs and a bench, and raffia pendants hang low over both ends of the room.

Two king bedrooms sit on the first floor, each with its own bathroom, a study desk, a wardrobe, a smart television and a Juliet balcony over the pool. Both are white and quiet, with lit arched niches beside the beds, framed Bali prints above the headboards and paper-globe pendants hanging where lamps would usually go. The bathrooms are where the villa shows off: one is lined floor to ceiling in emerald herringbone zellige with a brass rain shower and a built-in stone bench, the other is done in cream zellige with a chunky terrazzo basin under an arched brass mirror. There is an outdoor shower as well, for the walk back from the beach.

The villa is staffed and cleaned daily, and a welcome drink, towels, fast Wi-Fi, room safes and a Nespresso machine with pods are all part of the stay. Beyond that a concierge will organise airport transfers, a car with or without a driver, a scooter, breakfast in the villa, a private chef, a massage, a nanny, a pool fence, laundry and any of the surf lessons and day tours the island runs on. Two identical villas stand immediately next door and can be taken with this one, which turns four guests into twelve without anybody sharing a bathroom.

Villa Polanco is a small villa that behaves like a large one, because everything in it has been detailed properly: the green tile, the terrazzo, the arched doors, the thatch over the water. Step out of the gate and Canggu starts immediately, which is either the point or the price, depending on your mood.