Paradise found

SUPPLEMENT YOUR SRI LANKA STAY WITH A VISIT TO A FAITHFULLY RESTORED ADMIRAL'S RESIDENCE.

- Words KIRSTIE CLEMENTS

DOORNBERG IS AN 18TH-CENTURY property of quiet grandeur, a beautifully restored private villa set in the hills overlooking the Bay of Galle and historic Galle Fort. The 930-square-metre house with its stately Palladio columns was originally built in 1712 by a Dutch admiral, a colonial farmhouse that then became the Galle School in 1814, later transferred to the Anglican Church and serving at one point as a boys’ orphanage. Doornberg underwent extensive reconstruction in the early 2000s in a project led by respected Sri Lankan architect Channa Daswatte, and from 2002 operated as both a home and a private hotel, attracting a host of international celebrities and tastemakers drawn to its sense of privacy and elegance.