Villa RIZR

Villa RIZR sits behind a timber gate on Jalan Raya Semat, a few hundred metres back from the Berawa strip, and what you see first is water — a long lap pool tiled in emerald mosaic running the full length of the garden, with a hardwood deck down one side and a built-in daybed at the far end. The house behind it is two storeys of dark timber battens and charcoal stone, every opening edged in black steel and glass, and it reads as considerably more architectural than most of what Canggu puts up. Tall reeds, banana palms and heliconia crowd the boundary wall, so the water sits in green shade through much of the afternoon.

Inside, the doors slide away and the ground floor becomes one long room open to the deck. A plaster banquette is built into two walls beneath a double-height ceiling, dressed in linen cushions with a round woven pouffe on a jute rug, and the herringbone timber floor runs straight out to the threshold. The kitchen occupies a poured concrete island with a gas hob, backed by timber joinery and a splashback of geometric triangle tile in sage and white; a live-edge dining table and rattan chairs sit under an oversized woven pendant. Behind them a sculptural white staircase climbs through the volume on open timber treads, past a console, a round mirror and a row of carved figures.

Three bedrooms are split across the two floors, each with a king bed, air conditioning and its own bathroom. Ceilings are vaulted and fitted with black fans, dried palm-frond sculptures lean in the corners, and ochre cushions pick up the timber of the bed frames; upstairs the rooms open through black-framed sliders onto narrow balconies with the coconut canopy at eye level. The bathrooms are the detail worth noticing — river-boulder basins set on chunky timber slabs, lit from above by skylights, the same triangle tile carried up the wall and a bamboo ladder of rolled towels alongside. One has twin basins, another puts a walk-in rain shower behind a single pane of glass.

Most guests never find the side courtyard — lawn and stone pavers around one mature tree, out of sight of the pool — which is precisely why the massage table should be set up there. Front of house, the poured concrete island with its gas hob is built for a cook to work at, and the live-edge table under its woven pendant seats all six. The Berawa strip begins two hundred metres from the gate, so scooters make more sense than a car for dinner, though there is parking inside for one, and a driver for the thirteen kilometres to the airport. Cleaning happens daily, the pool is tended through the week, and someone answers at any hour.

Villa RIZR trades the usual thatch and teak for black steel, poured concrete and one long ribbon of green water. It is a designer’s house rather than a resort’s, private enough behind its wall to forget the street, and close enough to Berawa that dinner rarely needs a car.