Valley view East Villa
These two villas are a mix between the Queenslander and the Malay house styles, with broad wrap–around verandahs, spacious garden bathrooms and colonial–Dutch interiors. Items from Wijaya's personal art collection and various historical prints are on display in these villas, which are the most spacious and private in the compound.
Valley view West Villa
These two villas are a mix between the Queenslander and the Malay house styles, with broad wrap–around verandahs, spacious garden bathrooms and colonial–Dutch interiors. Items from Wijaya's personal art collection and various historical prints are on display in these villas, which are the most spacious and private in the compound.
Villa Made
Villa Made was writer/landscaper Made Wijaya’s original Sayan home, designed by Wijaya in the mountain style he calls Bali–Baronial.. The thatched, split–level villa has a full bathroom on each floor and a small kitchenette. It is one of the most dramatically sited mountain view villas in Bali. The architecture style is rustic – sliding Japanese style screen walls and dark Jaka Palm floors, with coconut wood columns – but the interiors are contemporary and comfortable. There is a small swimming pool adjacent this villa and a Balinese kitchen on an upper terrace where dinners can be served under the stars in Sayan style. Villa Made has for ten years been the summer retreat of photographer Tim Street-Porter and his writer artist wife Annie Kelly
Royal Villa
This villa was built on the site of musicologist Colin McPhee’s original 1950s Bali home, as featured in his book ‘A House in Bali.’ Built in the Balinese Majapahit (red brick) style, the villa overlooks the hotel northern swimming pool and the Ayung River valley beyond. This villa features a very private bathroom garden with valley views.
Malay Villa
Wijaya is an authority on regional architect and wanted in this villa to showcase the elegant bungalow style of Trengganu in Malaysia, the home of some of Malaysia’s most handsome colonial/traditional buildings. The interiors feature textiles by Lady Victoria Waymouth, and many antique pieces. An airy, independent bath–house, connected to the house, has a great view across the river valley. The bungalow has a wide view-side verandah. Francis and Eleanor Coppola stayed in the Malay House while conceptualizing their Belize beach hotel, The Turtle Inn.
Croissant Cottages
In 1980 French heiress and Balinese dance aficionado Agnes Yeti commissioned Wijaya to design a cottage in the former garden of musicologist Colin McPhee, adjacent to Villa Made. Wijaya had always loved the colonial ‘Queenslander’ style of Australian country house, wrapped with wide verandas; this became the inspiration for the house. The interiors are a unique Franco–Javo–Balinese blend. Architect Peter Muller and his wife stayed in Croissant Cottage where they designing and building the legendary Amandari hotel just up the road.
Presidential Suite
In 1995, Made Wijaya wanted a new house to showcase the view of neighboring site and was keen to flex some architectural muscle on the site. With his partners Gusti Sarjana and Nyoman Miyoga, a ‘Presidential Villa’ was conceived in a style that could be called ‘power dressing’. He wanted to do a substantial house that would be a new direction for traditional Balinese architecture and also their office’s decorative clout. The land’s three gentle terraces were turned into a dramatic two, with a lozenge–shaped lap–pool taking up most of the lower terrace. Three traditional structures were then built on the sizeable upper terrace.
(P.S. A view of the valley and the pool is desperately needed to define the house style and show the reader “one of Bali’s seven natural wonders” alluded to).
The main house he now called the Presidential Suite was built in the form of pure Balinese wantilan–the two–storied community halls that host cockfights in the wet season and gamelan rehearsals in the dry. This building was to house the public areas–the living and dining–with the master bedroom above. A staff house was attached to the kitchen section of the main house off the entrance court. Off the far corner of the Wantilan, the valley–view side, they built a ‘Royal’ bedroom inspired by the large loji pavilions he had admired in the Saren palace nearby of Ubud. They gave this Royal suite a ‘Queenslander’ tropical bungalow touch by adding a wide terrace accessed through giant louvered doors. There was little garden left on the upper terraces so he wanted the interiors to be ‘sparkling’: too many ‘valley view’ houses are drab he felt, once the view ‘goes out’ at 6 p.m. He enlisted the services of Trompe L’oeil artist du jour Stephen Little and give his florid fantasies full reign. The results were miraculous: he made the Royal Suite feel like a cardinal’s bedroom in an ancient Portuguese castle. The tile frieze painted up the wall was like the side wall on a Venetian gondola garage, updated in the 1950s. The bedroom had bold character and wit.
In the main house the maestro created frescos taken from our joint Port Jackson ( Sydney Harbor ) past. On one sliding door Stephen painted, in naïve neo-native fashion, a fresco of a fictitious, operatic First Fleet, arriving at Padang Bai, the port of East Bali . It had been inspired by a similar work on the stairs of the legendary Taj Hotel in Port Aguarda in Goa , India , a snap of which I had produced. Other screens featured hyperreal Trompe L'oeil of coconut-weave walls. On the pewter colored cement floors of the main living room Little painted Taro-card heraldic rugs complete with the corners scuffed up. Harlequin tile patterns, rich wall colors, and high camp decorative touches (Matador lamps astride Javanese rent trolleys) completed the exotic mix.
Bali Aga Suite
Spacious suites located near the new lap pool and outdoor of Bali Aga Museum of Architecture. These suites are the newest and most luxurious of Taman Bebek accommodation. Set in a former coconut plantation, the villas have both valley and garden views and are conveniently situated near the hotel’s lap pool, lobby and dining terrace.
Important Notice
