The best hotel I have stayed in

A CRICKET TOUR OF SRI LANKA: The portfolio of Asia's best known architect, Geoffrey Bawa, includes the 35 hotels he designed in Sri Lanka before his death three years ago. Now his own country home has been turned into a small hotel, which opened only last month. I can honestly say it is the best place I have ever stayed in.

Having heard only a little of Lunaganga beforehand helps, as too high expectations are rarely fulfilled. The unmarked roads, impending dusk and arrival at a set of tall gates and weathered walls promising mystery beyond also helped the anticipation.

The four of us walked up the winding stone steps to the single door entrance, and saw straight down the corridor through the house to the terrace and lake behind. It is, I was to understand, a trademark of Bawa - drawing you in, heightening the senses and then, voila. The Italianate terrace, with balustrades, sculptures and steps, was where we were served a gin and tonic and then immediately saw an eagle flying into the gloom clutching a large fish. We'd already seen a mongoose, monkey and gecko and had only been there three minutes.

Our room (my wife, Lizzie, has flown out for the second week) was in the main house, the other five rooms having been fantastically created in different buildings on the 25-acre former rubber plantation estate. Ours had a four poster, with a beautiful small walled courtyard looking onto jackfruit, cinammon and rubber trees. John and Lulu's triple-levelled house had views to the lake, a black and white styled living room and another four-poster in the middle of a barn surrounded by art. Other rooms had showers built outside, another was entirely walled in glass.

When in Sri Lanka, Bawa split his time between Lunuganga and his home and workship in Colombo. But he spent decades developing the former rubber plantation he bought in 1948 and it shows. From the terrace, now ablaze with oil lamps, we could look down on rice paddies and across to the enormous frangapani tree which he adored.

The next morning, we were shown the steps down to a nook with stone bench where Bawa watched the sunset. And another were he had morning coffee overlooking the Valley of Pots, his collection of massive urns. There were several flights of weathered steps, leading down and around the main house, to the water features and more sculpture and to the artists residences and water tower. Finally, there was Bawa's ashes in an urn itself, atop Cinammon Hill - a hill he ordered reduced in size so he could look across to a second lake from his breakfast terrace.

The picture emerged of a despotic perfectionist, ordering the cutting of trees while with a cigarette and gin in his hand, or ordering no-one to touch the 50-year-old frangapani. His room, which sadly remains locked while its future is decided, also had vents so he could listen to his houseguests conversations. But his aesthetic eye for line and light, which also saw him be asked to design the National Parliament, makes the house and its setting remarkable.

Kingfishers, herons and parrots were common sightings the next morning, after a cooked breakfast with fresh mango juice and fruit on the terrace (and that was after being served tea in bed). Dinner was an unfussy three-course affair with wine, very well cooked by 24-year-old Becks from Cheshire, a trained caterer who is looking after the house during its first season. Open as a hotel only from December to April, it then reverts back to being an artists' residence (the house remains in the ownership of a trust that Bawa set up, and is operated as a hotel by local hotelier Geoffrey Dobbs).

I had heard of Bawa five years ago, when I stayed in Kandalama, a hotel he designed near Dambulla. Then I was struck by the use of space, light and glass. The infinity pool he put in 20 years ago, way before most, looked out over another lake and valley - and the loo was also glass sided, with the same view as the pool. And tonight we are staying in The Lighthouse Hotel in Galle, which has similiar principles - and where 18 other members of the cricket team has their "best lunch on the island," according to skipper Dave Thomas.

Bawa got it right. It was a real privilege to stay in Lunuganga: it is not a museum, it is as he designed and lived in and it is still his home, down to the electric wheelchair he used after a stroke shortly after Prince Charles visited in 1998. No doubt they talked about carbuncles. The grounds and gardens are magnificent and its location outstanding. Then there is Becks, the ever attentive staff (many of whom worked for Bawa), the food and wildlife, whose squawking and nocturnal scratchings made it feel like a safari even though we were one mile off the main Colombo-Galle road at Bentota.

John and I travel back to Colombo tomorrow for the last game of the three-match tour before returning south for three days, then back to Mt Lavinia for a final night cricket tour thrash. But I don't doubt at all that Lunuganga will now be the highlight of the tour.

Details: Lunuganga can be booked through Sri Lanka in Style for around £140 a room, with dinner (£20), drinks and breakfast extra. It is also available through Boutiques Sri Lanka.

SriLanka in Style also has two properties in Galle, the Dutch House and Sun House, and rents a property on Taprobane Island near Galle. The Lighthouse Hotel in Galle can be booked through Jetwing Travel.

Comments

[kieron robinson]

My family and I are going on a five day tour and 8 days on the beach in siri lanka on July the 4th we are not going any where near the north or north east of the island ,should we have reason to be concerned about the latest unrest with the cease fire breaking down.
reguards kieron