Tamarind House

Tamarind is the most finished, most house-like of our homes — not a room with a deck but an actual multi-room villa with a hallway, two real bedrooms and rich red hardwood floors throughout. For a family or two couples travelling together, it feels like settling into a proper home rather than a holiday room.

You climb to it up a wide staircase that curves through the hillside, lined with terracotta pots. At the top there's a large covered veranda in red hardwood — a hammock, a daybed, a separate dining area and roll-down blinds for weather. The master bedroom has the nicest bed we have: a carved dark-wood four-poster with netting tied at the posts and a woven gold panel behind it. The second bedroom is a genuine full room with its own air-conditioning, which is what makes this a true house for four.

The kitchen is the best we offer — an enclosed galley with a white-and-gold marble counter under a wall of windows, a gas hob and a full-size two-door fridge. And the bathroom carries our gold-rock detail in its most refined form: a granite boulder built into the room and painted gold, forming the back wall.