Villa Heiwa

Villa Heiwa is behind a gate on Gang Cempaka Putih, a lane off Jalan Rurung on the quiet side of Canggu, and it opens directly onto water. The courtyard is the house: white rendered walls turned into a run of arches, pale stone underfoot, and a curved pool with a built-in stone daybed at its head. Fan palms stand in terracotta pots against the walls, more pots line the parapet above, and a pergola of timber slats throws a striped shade across one side that travels through the afternoon. Everything else — the living room, both bedrooms — opens off this one space, so the courtyard is the corridor as well as the view.

Through the arched steel-framed doors, the living room runs the width of the house. A long low sectional in oatmeal with terracotta cushions sits under a row of tall paper-and-rattan cylinder pendants facing a smart television, and beyond it a solid timber table for six waits under a tiered raffia chandelier the size of a drum. The kitchen is the third act: timber cabinetry under a long white worktop, a gas hob, and lit plaster shelves stacked with dark ceramics, boards and pale jugs. It is a room built from three materials — white plaster, honey timber and woven fibre — and it never reaches for a fourth.

The two bedrooms are the clever part. Neither connects to the other and each is entered from the courtyard, so two couples can share the villa and still keep their own front door. Both hold a king bed set into a plaster alcove, woven discs and framed prints above it, rattan pendants either side and black-out blinds for the mornings you would rather not have. The en-suites carry the same hand: organic-shaped mirrors on white plaster vanities, stone basins, black tapware and a timber ladder for towels. One bedroom looks out through a planted light well where palms grow up under a skylight.

Staff come daily, the pool and garden are seen to two or three times a week, and a welcome drink, towels for the pool and the bathroom, a safe in each room, fast Wi-Fi and the concierge are part of the rate. A private cook, a car with or without a driver, a scooter, a massage beside the pool, a nanny, a pool fence, laundry and days out among the temples are arranged on request. Up a flight of stairs there is a flat roof terrace that catches the sunset over the neighbouring gardens. A hundred and fifty-three square metres for four, four kilometres from Batu Bolong and Echo Beach, it suits two couples travelling together or a family who want the surf at driving distance and the evenings quiet.

Villa Heiwa is one courtyard and three rooms that all face it, which is the whole argument. Swim, eat under the chandelier, retreat behind your own door, climb to the roof at six. Four kilometres of scooter ride sits between you and the noise, which on most evenings turns out to be exactly the right distance.