Villa Babylon

The approach off Jalan Munduk Belan is a timber walk between beds of dune grass lit from below, and then the roof arrives: a single white plane that curves and folds over the glass like something poured rather than built. Behind it lies the reason people book this house. A pool twenty-two metres long runs the width of the travertine terrace, and set into it, ringed entirely by water, is a sunken circular fire pit. A round jacuzzi sits at one end and a cold plunge tub at the other, both cut flush into the stone. Cemagi’s fields lie beyond the glass balustrade, and the black sand at Seseh is a three-minute walk from the gate.

Inside, the ground floor is one volume, and its centre is a spiral staircase — solid timber treads turning inside a drum of white plaster, lit from above, more sculpture than circulation. Deep bouclé sofas face it in a loose square, with a projector overhead in place of a television and artworks propped against the walls. The glass slides back on the pool side so the room simply ends at the terrace. Along the far wall a chef’s kitchen runs behind a bar of heavily veined marble, and the dining table beside it is a single length of timber with seats for the whole house. Nobody has to eat in shifts.

The eight suites are stacked over three levels and none of them is the short straw. Each has a king bed, a bathroom of its own and a wall of glass; the walls are timber panelling set against rough honey-coloured stone, and the floors are herringbone parquet. Several have low timber soaking tubs and onyx-clad vanities standing openly in the room rather than shut away, and one suite puts its bed on a platform at the lip of its own plunge pool. Another opens sideways into a planted court with an outdoor shower among the aloes. Highest of all is the rooftop suite, with a teak terrace to itself and the sunset over Cemagi’s temple roofs.

The fire pit is where a stay here settles. It is also why a private chef is the extra worth arranging: with sixteen seats at that timber table and a marble bar to work behind, dinner in beats convoying scooters to Pererenan, and the team will cook breakfast and lunch as easily. A treatment room built into the house means the masseuse is not improvising in a bedroom. Parking on the property takes cars and scooters, which on these lanes is not nothing. Housekeeping comes daily, towels and Wi-Fi and safes are part of the rate, and the rest — drivers, a nanny, a pool fence, surf lessons — goes through the concierge.

Villa Babylon is a house for an occasion — a wedding party, a birthday, three families who want their own floor. It is large and unusual and rather theatrical, and it holds sixteen people without anyone feeling processed. Book it for the evenings: fire lit, water black, everyone drifting between the terrace and the roof.