Villa Era

Jalan Pantai Batu Mejan is the road that runs down to Echo Beach, and about eighty numbers along it a carved timber sign hangs on a white wall beside a banana palm. Behind it the house goes straight up: three floors of white render, glass and timber-battened soffits, with glass balustrades on every level. The pool lies along the front, and standing in the middle of it is a raised stone platform, broad enough to lie on with your feet still in the water. Stone steps climb the far side, planting beds of heliconia press against the boundary wall, and the whole ground floor opens onto it.

Inside, the living room is sunken. The sectional sofa sits a step below the floor beneath a double-height void with a raft of timber slats overhead, and the wide edge that surrounds it works as extra seating when there are eight of you. Slide the glass back and the room simply continues onto the pool terrace. Along the same open space run a dining table for eight and a white kitchen island lit by two rattan pendants, with oven, hob, a full fridge and a mini fridge, and stools pulled up on the far side. A pale stone staircase with a glass balustrade climbs past a fiddle-leaf fig.

Four king bedrooms fill the two floors above and one sits on the ground floor, each with its own bathroom and its own television. Three of them push out onto balconies with glass rails, so you wake looking across terracotta roofs towards the sea. The bathrooms are pale tile with timber vanities and black tapware; the ground-floor one takes a freestanding tub beneath a louvred window between twin arched mirrors, and another is finished in stacked sea-green tile. Above everything is the roof: a timber bar counter, built-in daybeds, sun loungers and a screen, out in the open with all of Canggu below.

The rooftop is what settles the pattern of a stay here. Guests tend to swim in the morning, walk down to Sensorium or Gigi Susu for lunch, and come back up top for the evening — which is why the concierge extras worth booking are a driver for the run to La Brisa after dark and a scooter or two for the daytime, since there is nowhere to park at the gate. The pool has a shallow end, and a fence for it can be fitted for small children. Housekeeping is daily, towels for the beach as well as the bathroom are provided, and breakfast can be sent up if you ask.

Villa Era suits a group that wants space rather than seclusion: two families, or eight friends who would rather have four proper suites than share. The address puts the surf, the beach clubs and the best of the Canggu food scene within a few minutes, and the roof gives you somewhere to come back to.