An exotic individually designed home from home
Each room in Lamai Sarai tells a story of the ancient Silk Road and is named after a spice. The villa’s design is ‘ultra-modern Samui’, but its rooms are treasure-troves of furniture sourced from along the Silk-Road, from Morocco in its far west to China in the far east.
The main living pod, sheltered under a bronze-clad gable inspired by coconut palms, houses the eating and sitting areas, and upstairs, a library, home cinema and star-gazing deck. From the library a corridor extends to two bedrooms. On the pool deck below, there are two more guest rooms, one that can be equipped for mobility impaired guests. Down spiral stairs to the leisure deck, the fifth guest room, with stunning views of the South China Sea, is located next to the gym. When not in use by the owners, a sixth bedroom is available in the Villa’s ‘cave suite’, which includes a bathroom built into granite boulders and a secret bamboo garden with pagoda and rock pool.
‘Rosemary and Thyme’
Bedroom 1: ‘Rosemary and Thyme‘ is inspired by the English Maritime tradition and has an English antique pine desk that once occupied a British sea-captain’s cabin.
‘Sumac and Clove’
Bedroom 2: ‘Sumac and Clove’is inspired by the Turkish Bosporus, a narrow strip of waterway on the ancient Silk Road, linking the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. The four-poster bed in this room is decorated by a traditional vibrant red flat-woven Turkish Kilim fabric.
‘Cinnamon and Mace’
Bedroom 3: ‘Cinnamon and Mace’ is inspired by the islands of the Indian ocean. It has a massive Indian chest of drawers, and is draped with Persian, Indian and Guatemalan lively red fabrics.
‘Ginger and Mint’
Bedroom 4: ‘Ginger and Mint’ is inspired by the wild Atlantic coast of Morocco. It has a cabinet made from a door recovered from an old building in Taroudant, one of the cities that extended the Moroccan Silk Road trade across the Sahara Desert to Mali and beyond.
‘Cardamon and Lime’
Bedroom 5: ‘Cardamon and Lime’, a room inspired by the Malaccan Straights and the Indonesian spices that braved the pirates on the journey westwards. The room has traditional fabrics and carved furniture from Java, India, Morocco and Thailand.
‘Juniper and Sage’
A sixth bedroom (the Suite), ‘Juniper and Sage’, is self-contained from the rest of the villa, with its own secret bamboo garden and outdoor rock jacuzzi pool. This is mostly reserved as our family quarter but is sometimes available as a sixth guest room. It has a breath-taking rock-cave bathroom with a shower made of local river pebbles, a spiral staircase linking it to a private BBQ terrace with a Bali-style rope seat hanging from antique Thai teak pillars.
Villa Lamai Sarai 