Villa Shams

The gate sits under a shaggy fringe of alang-alang thatch, and behind it a narrow green pool runs the length of a courtyard walled in rough-cut cream limestone. A second thatched canopy shades a built-in daybed at the water’s edge, heliconia and travellers palms are packed tight against the stone, and two parasols stand on the pale terrace opposite. Above it all, black-framed arched steel windows march across a white plaster upper floor. This is Ibiza by way of Batu Bolong, on a lane where Deus Ex Machina is 230 metres away and the sand about 750.

Inside is one room, and the trick of it is the ceiling. The living space rises through two storeys, with two enormous fringed rattan pendants hanging in the void and a smart television set flush into an arched plaster niche. Below the screen the sofa is built into the floor, a sunken bench of white cushions you fall into rather than sit on. Arched alcoves down the walls hold carved objects and shells, a round solid-timber table with cane-backed chairs stands by the glass, and the kitchen runs along the back in timber under a splashback of crazy-paved white stone, with an oven, a hob and a shelf of glassware above it. There is a guest toilet down here too.

Upstairs is the king bedroom, where the plaster headboard is built into the wall between two arched niches and the arched steel windows look over neighbouring roofs. Its bathroom has a terrazzo trough vanity with brass tapware, a tall mirror the height of the wall, and a step up to a deep soaking tub. There is also an outdoor shower set in a plaster niche under a slot skylight, which on a hot afternoon is the better of the two. Blackout blinds, air conditioning and a ceiling fan mean the room stays cool at any hour.

Two people in a villa with a kitchen this good should get a cook in at least once; the round table seats four and faces straight out at the pool. Staff clean each day, the pool and planting are seen to a couple of times a week, and the concierge arranges the rest — scooters mainly, since almost everything worth walking to is inside a five-minute ride, and a driver for the run to Seminyak or the airport. A massage table goes under the thatch by the daybed, which is where most guests end up spending the middle of the day anyway.

Villa Shams is small on purpose. One bedroom, one pool, one long room with a very high ceiling, and a courtyard that shuts out a neighbourhood you can otherwise walk into in three minutes. For two people it is the right size, and the thatched daybed is what they will remember.