Connect And Turn Off

- Dominic Ellis

Even by Sri Lankan standards, the remote greenery of the Lunuganga Country Estate is something to behold. The access road, barely the width of a car, turns into a track before you arrive at the imposing gates. The estate is the country home of architect Geoffrey Bawa, the ‘father’ of modern Asian architecture and visionary behind the Anantara Kalutara close by, where I’ve spent the last two nights.

Bawa, the son of a wealthy Muslim lawyer who returned to Ceylon after the second world war, poured 40 years of his life into creating this garden paradise which is inspired by the Italian Renaissance and English landscaped gardens.

The gates are unlocked at 9.30am. I walk past a soaring, ancient mahogany tree and through the lush grounds, where you can gaze far down below at the butterfly-shaped, lily-covered pond; it’s nature stacked upon nature. It turns into an all-round sensory experience, as I bite on a cinnamon stalk straight from the tree. The panoramic view of the Dedduwa Lake, flanked by a pair of classical sculptures, is so vast it could pass for an ocean, although a glance at Google Maps shows only the narrow Athuruwella Stream provides access to the open sea.

As we meander back to the house, past Sri Lanka’s national tree – whose flowers resemble fried eggs – an Asian Water Monitor strolls past (a good size, but smaller than the one that crept out of the resort’s bushes) and pair of brown cows graze by the house, breaking up the ubiquitous green.

Left to the Lunuganga Trust on Bawa’s death in 2003, the gardens are now open to the public and buildings on the estate are run as a country house hotel. The five suites are preserved as much as possible to look how they would during Bawa’s lifetime.

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