Built slowly, on family land

The land came first. A narrow plot of coconut palms off Pallikkudawa Road, a few minutes inland from the water, the sort of quiet lane where the loudest thing most afternoons is a king coconut coming down.

What stands on it now is small, and meant to stay that way. Two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, arranged around a pool and a covered terrace where most of the day tends to happen. There is no reception desk, no restaurant, no lobby to walk through. There is a pool, a garden, a kitchen you are welcome to use, and the sea at the end of the road.

We kept the palms. Nearly all of them are still standing where they were, which is why the pool sits where it does rather than dead centre — it was easier to move the pool than to lose three good trees. They are also the reason for the name: the king coconut, thambili, the orange one you drink cold straight from the shell.

The building is plain in the way south-coast houses are plain — a deep covered terrace, wide overhangs, high ceilings, tiled floors that stay cool underfoot. Every room has air conditioning and a ceiling fan, and doors that fold right back so the room opens onto the terrace rather than sealing shut.

What we are trying to make is not a hotel. It is closer to being handed the keys to a house. Breakfast is cooked for you; after that the kitchen is yours, or the restaurants on the beach road are three hundred metres away. If you want the whole place to yourselves, take both rooms — most groups do.