Sri Lanka’s modern day tastemaker and answer to Terence Conran, Shanth Fernando puts the ooh in boutique with his charmant seaside escape, Villa Bentota.
Conveniently posi’d just 2 hours south of Colombo, Villa Bentota is Fernando’s second hotel (the first is Tintagel in Colombo), and unsurprisingly the Paradise Road boutique-owner and Gallery Café restaurateur has laid his signature style on thick, and catapulted himself yet further up the Sri Lanka style-o-meter.
Housed in a building designed by Lanka’s most famous and revered architect, Geoffrey Bawa, and including a newly built annex, the 15 rooms and suites are black and tan, taupe and white triumphs of relaxed beach glam – think Kelly Hoppen in the tropics. There are two beckoning swimming pools, and the inclusion of a boutique, art gallery and café will be an oasis in a retail and dining desert, but what we find most charming though, are the old trains pootling past on the tracks between the immaculate lawns and the surf.
Villa Bentota, 138/18 – 138/22 Galle Road, Sri Lanka. +94 34 227 5311, villabentota.com
