Villa Dara

The lane off Jalan Pura Wates narrows until the tarmac gives out, and the last thing on it is a long white wall with rice fields running away behind it. Behind that wall Villa Dara turns its back on Canggu entirely. Two king bedrooms and an open living room face each other across a narrow pool, the courtyard walls finished in a combed white render that throws horizontal shadows across the water all afternoon, and a broad timber deck runs the full length of the far side with folding chairs at the shallow end. Pandanus, banana and hibiscus press in over the top of the walls. The only sound is water moving through a bamboo spout in the corner of the garden.

The living room is a single raked-ceiling space that opens along its whole front. A deep grey sofa sits under a slow dark fan facing a 55-inch screen, the dining table is one slab of live-edge timber under a cluster of woven rattan pendants, and the kitchen runs along the back wall in dark timber and black stone, stocked well enough for proper cooking rather than reheating. Both bedrooms sit on the same level, each with a king bed, a carved bench at its foot, blackout curtains and its own glass door to the deck, so you can step from bed into the pool without passing through anybody else’s room. Each also has a real desk and a fast connection, which is the reason a lot of guests here stay for weeks rather than nights.

Then there is the roof, which is where this villa earns its reputation. A pavilion of arched bamboo trusses under a woven bamboo ceiling covers a modular blue-striped sofa, a two-person daybed and a long bar table with stools set along the rail, and the view from every one of them is green rice fields and the tiled roofs of Babakan. Two cushioned loungers sit out in the open beside a parasol for the middle of the day. In the evening the fields go dark early and there is very little light around to spoil the sky, so the daybed becomes the best seat in the house. Downstairs, an outdoor bamboo shower off the pool takes care of the salt after a surf.

Because there are only four of you, the help here is light-handed rather than constant: staff come through daily to clean, the pool and garden are seen to two or three times a week, and someone is on call at any hour to open the gate. What we would actually book is the roof. A private cook will lay dinner on the bar table up there, and the massage therapist sets up on the daybed at the hour the light goes gold over the fields. Beyond that, two wheels beat four on these lanes — the concierge keeps scooters — while the run to the airport is a full hour, so book a car and driver rather than gambling on a ride. Couples, two friends sharing, or a small family with young children will all fit this house easily.

Villa Dara is smaller than most of what we list, and that is the point of it. Everything happens on two levels, twelve steps apart: swim, work, eat, then climb to the bamboo roof and watch the fields turn from green to grey. Guests here rate it 4.94, and the reason is not the fittings but the quiet.