Villa Arnie

An arched timber gate off Jalan Pantai Batu Bolong opens straight onto the water. Villa Arnie gives its whole ground floor over to a walled courtyard with a green-tiled plunge pool down one side, a bamboo pergola shading the paving and a thatched parasol leaning over a built-in bench cushioned in green-and-white stripes. Walls of flat, pale stone climb to white rendered arches, banana leaves push in from the corners, and a black-framed glass wall folds the living room into the courtyard whenever you want it open. This is Batu Bolong, a quarter of an hour on foot from the surf and a couple of minutes from the coffee, and none of it reaches over the wall.

Inside, the plan is compact and clever. The lounge is sunken, a deep white built-in sofa set below floor level with a low timber table and a smart television on the wall, so that two people can sprawl without furniture crowding the room. Two steps up, a round timber table with woven-cane chairs sits against the kitchen, which is built in warm timber under a splashback of crazy-paved stone and comes with an oven, a proper coffee maker, wine glasses and enough pans to make dinner worth staying in for. Arched plaster niches hold ceramics and trailing plants, and giant rattan pendant shades hang low over everything.

The bedroom is upstairs and it is the reason to book. A fluted timber headboard runs the width of the room with concealed light behind it, alabaster globes hang either side of the bed, and two tall arched steel doors open onto a small iron-railed balcony looking down over the pool and across to the arcade opposite. Blackout blinds handle the mornings you would rather not have. The en-suite is a single beautiful run of terrazzo: a trough basin with brass wall-mounted taps, backlit mirrors, and a sunken tub two steps up under a skylight, with an outdoor shower down in the courtyard for coming in off the beach.

Fifty minutes from the airport, at the wrong hour, is a good argument for letting the concierge put a driver at arrivals rather than joining the taxi queue. After that a scooter is the honest answer to Batu Bolong: there is nowhere to leave a car at the gate, and the lanes between here and Revolver or Milk & Madu were never built for one. A therapist can be sent to the courtyard, where the bamboo pergola holds the paving in shade until late afternoon and the plunge pool is one step away afterwards. And with the villa built for two, a chef for a single evening at that round timber table is a small indulgence rather than a large one.

Villa Arnie is a small building doing a very specific job well: two people, one pool, no stairs to anywhere they do not need to go. Spend the morning at Batu Bolong, the afternoon in the water at home, and the evening on the striped cushions under the pergola while the courtyard cools and the lane goes quiet.