Villa Buana

Villa Buana is a small, precise white house in Uluwatu that gets one thing exactly right — the pool. Instead of the usual rectangle and four loungers, the water is wrapped by rounded plaster seating and a sunken bean-bag lounge built into the terrace, so the whole poolside becomes somewhere to sit rather than somewhere to walk past.

Above it, split bamboo lines the ceilings in warm bands against white plaster and pale timber, with arched niches cut into the walls holding books and ceramics. The ground floor opens fully to the pool through folding glass; upstairs a second living room with its own bamboo ceiling looks out over the rooftops towards the Uluwatu scrub, and a built-in desk under the window makes it an easy place to work for a morning.

Three bedrooms are quiet and uncluttered — low timber platform beds, deep chocolate linen, woven pendants and their own bathrooms with twin timber vanities. The beaches are the reason to be here, with Bingin, Padang Padang and the Uluwatu breaks each a short drive, and the villa itself sits back from the traffic on a quiet lane.