Dreams of relocating to Bali dance through the minds of many who land on its shores. When Australian couple Rod Williams and Carolyn Markland made the move to officialize their long love affair with the island, they enlisted local architectural design studio Caceres + Tous to realize their forever home on a private, jungle-fringed section in a traditional banjar (neighborhood) of Canggu on Bali’s southern coast. Slung low in a muted palette of local materials, Junipero House appears to emerge from the wilderness, both contrasting and harmonizing with its natural surrounds.

Recalling their first joint visit to the island of the gods in 1995, Rod notes, “Something happened when we stepped off the plane. It still does, nearly 30 years later. The warmth, the aroma of the tuberose flower and the smiles of the Balinese people just envelop you. We were enchanted by the constant ceremonies and celebrations, which are clearly part of local life.”

Enraptured, the couple followed their hearts back to Bali on a yearly basis, and eventually upped the ante by undertaking a luxury boutique development in the resort area of Seminyak. Rod supervised the project from Australia, flying over from Melbourne every month with materials and interior pieces in tow: “Twelve ceiling fans in one trip comes to mind,” he recalls.

In 2016, when the couple decided to realize their dream of retiring here, they opted to start fresh, building from scratch and channeling the triumphs and tribulations of their first villa into their next and last. “The freedom to build in Bali is exhilarating and addictive,” Rod says of the rationale behind beginning again. “From the range of natural stones, timbers, and handmade finishes, to the endless patience of our construction teams, it’s a very rewarding experience.”

This time around, they wanted to partner with local architects. While scouting talent, the portfolio of Nicolás Cáceres and Kiko Tous’s namesake studio impressed in its breadth and warm, natural take on Balinese modernism.

The architects were equally as impressed with Rod and Carolyn’s site, a double plot of land with the rare two-fold advantage of privacy and proximity to nearby buzzy restaurants and nightlife. “It’s a beautiful piece of land located fifty meters from the busy streets of Canggu. It has a flat area at the beginning, then it goes very steep into a deep riverbed full of beautiful rocks. Across from the river, there are only rice fields. It’s almost remote, very private,” Cáceres notes.

Rod and Carolyn love the balance of the local rhythms in their adopted home. “Gamelan music, ceremonies, rice farming, and families who have been here always—it is the best of old Bali with proximity to modern-day Bali,” Rod says.

Respecting the site’s favorable conditions served as the point of departure for Rod and Caroline’s open brief, which Rod describes as, “broadly speaking, to create a peaceful haven amongst the trees. A space for just the two of us; like an apartment in which we’d spend most of our time. It had to be spacious, comfortable, relaxing and a little bit ‘luxy’.”

The final concept emerged through a dialectic between architects and clients. “We experimented with a number of site planning concepts, interior layouts, and materials options before locking them down,” notes Rod. “We had loved the midcentury modern design of our last villa. We wanted hints of that, but we wanted to give the architects some freedom.” From the first concept of a concrete-dominant monolith, the design evolved into something softer: “Less exposed, off-form concrete, and more warmth and softness—a Merlot rather than a Shiraz,” as he puts it.

Applying their practice’s guiding principle of challenging convention, Caceres + Tous took an unconventional approach to the house’s position and orientation. The standard response might have been to foreground an infinity pool or a lavish garden setting. Instead, the architects pushed the house back to the brink of the wilderness, positioning the living areas to face the jungle, allowing its presence to set the mood inside and out. No trees were sacrificed in the build, and Rod and Carolyn gave free rein to landscape designer studio Florian Wild to extend the jungle into the garden and through the house with discerningly placed young palms, creepers and tufted rooftop grasses.

Approaching the house from the street, “you walk through the garden and past the longitudinal pool until you reach this pavilion, which reaches into the jungle patch,” explains Tous. Viewed from the front, the house is partitioned by a staircase and topped by a skylight that further centers the jungle between the garden and the sky. Taking a cue from the steep slope at the site’s rear section, “We extended the flat area of the floor plan into the jungle as we wanted to accentuate the connection,” notes Cáceres. “This allowed us to create two rooms underneath.” Alongside ample storage space, one is used as a yoga area and the other as a guest bedroom.

“When the sun rises, light is filtered by the jungle patch, bringing this texture of leaves into the main living spaces.”
—Nicolás Cáceres, architect

A restrained and pleasingly contrasting material palette—monolithic stone walls, perforated brick screens, and blackened wood—further reinforces the bond between Junipero House and its surrounds. As per the architects’ philosophy, locality was top of mind. “We try to bring the vernacular concept in materials or shapes, to not forget that we are in Bali,” notes Tous. Accordingly, local stone called paras kerobokan sets a soft brutalist tone both inside and out.

“Kerobokan is a local stone that’s used in temples, fences, and traditional Balinese architecture. It has these tones that come from the same soil as Canggu,” explains Cáceres. “Canggu is very linked to kerobokan in its colors. If you go to the beach, the sand is dark brown. The jungle in Bali comes from volcanic ashes, so it’s very well-suited to a dark palette.”

Equally key to the choice of materials was how they would hold up in Bali’s intense tropical climate, which accelerates corrosion. “We had to think about the maintenance of the buildings. The stone we used, when it starts to get moldy, looks beautiful,” Cáceres notes. “The roughness of the materials makes them age nicely.” Such considerations of patina led Rod to suggest bankirai wood cladding charred in the Japanese yakisugi technique, which will help preserve it in the wet climate.

Warm wood tones extend through the house’s living spaces. Natural wood battened ceilings brighten the central veranda, held aloft by slim pillars that frame the jungle and evoke a pavilion-like feel. The sense of levity is further reinforced by the home’s varying layers of materiality. Chunky blocks of kerobokan intersperse with screens of airy perforated loster brick, creating an interplay of transparency and opacity, as well as weightiness and ethereality.

Junipero House is resolutely open to the elements. Verandas adjoin each bedroom and flank the main living and dining area, overlooking the river and rice fields to the east and the pool and garden to the west. This positioning makes the home especially receptive to the trajectory of light throughout the day. “When the sun rises, light is filtered by the jungle patch, bringing this texture of leaves into the main living spaces,” Cáceres says. “During the day, the tropical sun is very high, so it’s easy to control.” When it eventually descends, the pool receives its waning rays.

Inside, natural teak is used throughout the house’s living areas to temper the raw, moody finish of the stone, blending in the trademark warmth of midcentury influences, which continue with built-in wooden furniture that displays Rod and Carolyn’s collection of art, sculpture, and ceramic pieces, a combination of locally crafted objects and design classics from further afield amassed throughout their 30-year relationship.

“We wanted the house to feel like a one-story plan with a beautiful cozy human scale,” notes Cáceres. “We like to say that it’s a wooden pavilion on top of a stone base—the kerobokan foundations connect the house with the soil.”

From the owners’ perspective, “it suits us perfectly.” Carolyn’s favorite aspect is the sense of peace. “I can move from a balcony chaise with a river view to the study reading space or to the lounge or dining areas. I’m an interior person. The outdoors is best through a window.”

Rod can while away hours enjoying the home’s zones, garden, and pool. When everything is in order and each piece of equipment is humming nicely, he enjoys gardening and playing with Olive, the couple’s late-in-life “child,” a toy poodle.

The idyllic lifestyle for which Junipero sets the scene speaks for itself. But one questions remains—how did the home get its name? Carolyn explains, “One of our favorite Black Mirror episodes was San Junipero, which was actually a simulated world where people who loved each other could connect and live forever.”

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Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Caceres + Tous / @caceres_tous_studio

Builder: Bumi Gae

Photographer: Pempki (Iker Zuñiga) / @pempki

Structural Engineer: Nautylus

Civil Engineer: HSE

Landscape Designer: Florian Wild / @florian___wild

Lighting Design: Caceres + Tous

Interior Design: Caceres + Tous, execution by owners