Villa Kiyoji

Gang Wayang 15 is one of those Umalas lanes that gives nothing away — walled compounds, a scooter or two, ornamental grasses spilling over a rendered planter with a sculptural pine behind them. The name plate set into that wall reads KIYOJI, and past it the ground opens onto a garden built entirely around water. A lap pool tiled in mottled green stone runs the full length of the plot, a strip of lawn along one side and the house along the other, its curved white parapets and cantilevered upper floor rising over banana palms and a young frangipani. This is a sculptural piece of architecture rather than a traditional Balinese one, and after dark, when the underwater lights come on, the whole garden takes the colour of the pool.

The ground floor is a single double-height volume behind a wall of glass. A curved plaster staircase stands free in the middle of it, treads in pale stone, curling up towards the bedrooms with nothing holding it but its own geometry. Around it the living room steps down to a low modular sofa facing a linear fireplace and a television; the dining table is an oval of dark stone circled by fluted chairs under twin drum pendants; and the kitchen runs along the back wall off an island of figured marble with a fluted base, an arched niche of shelves and a small study nook beside it. Slide the glass back and the pool becomes the fourth wall.

Three king bedrooms are split across the two floors, all with air conditioning, wall-mounted televisions and reeded panelling running behind curved upholstered headboards. The master takes the corner with the best light, a glazed door to the balcony and its own bathroom with a bathtub and a walk-in shower; the other two share the second bathroom, a slab of black marble with matt black tapware and a shower behind black-framed glass. Between them a short dressing passage is lit by a strip of LED set into the door reveal, which is the sort of detail that tells you the house was finished by someone paying attention. Two hundred and twenty square metres, and very little of it wasted.

Breakfast is the reason the marble island earns its keep: the staff will do the grocery run and cook a simple one each morning, and you pay only for the food. They clean daily, tend the pool and garden two or three times a week, and will put a fence around the water on request — worth asking for, because this is a true lap pool with a single submerged shelf to stand on. There is a carport at the gate for a hire car, and Petitenget, Batu Belig and the Canggu beaches are all a short drive rather than a walk. Six guests in three equal king rooms: two or three couples, or a family who want Seminyak and Canggu both within reach.

There is a particular pleasure in a house this deliberate: one long line of water, one white curve of stair, and glass enough that you are never quite indoors. Villa Kiyoji suits people who want Umalas quiet at night and Seminyak or Canggu a short drive away, without having to choose between them.