About
Thaembili Grove
The Name
Thaembili — tæmbili in Sinhala — is the name Sri Lankans give to king coconut, the orange-husked palm that grows throughout the island and offers some of its sweetest, most refreshing water. Offering a king coconut to a guest is an old island custom, a small gesture of welcome long before the first word is spoken. It felt like the right name for a villa built to do exactly that.
The Building
Thaembili Grove was designed to stay cool the way Sri Lankan houses have for generations — not by fighting the climate, but by working with it. Every room is positioned and ventilated to encourage a constant flow of air through the villa, with ceiling fans throughout and air conditioning in each bedroom for the warmer months. The result is a villa that rarely feels like it needs cooling at all. The bathrooms are open to the sky, private but never closed in, so that bathing here feels like another part of the garden rather than a separate, sealed-off room.
The villa largely runs on solar power, and all of the woodwork — doors, furniture, detailing — was sourced locally and built by local craftsmen. It's a building made, quite deliberately, of this place.
The Bedrooms
Both bedrooms are generously sized, with built-in wardrobes for guests staying a while, and the twin room converts easily to a double should you prefer it. Each opens onto its own private terrace and a pair of sunloungers, with direct access to the pool — which wraps in an L-shape around two sides of the villa, so that however you choose to spend the afternoon, the water is never far away.
Bathrobes are woven by hand from local handloom cotton — a small, tactile detail that, like everything else in the villa, was chosen rather than simply supplied.Type your paragraph here
The Kitchen
The kitchen is fully equipped — not so much for guests to cook, but so that the chef can come to the villa and prepare meals for you in your own space. That said, the essentials for a quiet morning are all there: a proper espresso machine — true to its Swiss ownership — and a Quooker tap, so a perfect cup of Ceylon tea is never more than a minute away.
The Lounge
There is no television in the villa. The lounge was designed for the opposite of scrolling and channel-flicking — for reading, for talking, for doing very little at all. A small selection of books and a few board games are on hand for those moments when you want something to do without going anywhere. It's a room built around the idea that on holiday, the best entertainment is each other's company.