From Borneo to Bali: 140-year-old Dutch colonial house gets a fresh start
In pursuit of their dream home, Hong Kong couple Marcus Foley and Irene Capriz dismantled a Kalimantan plantation house and rebuilt it – with all the mod cons, of course – in Seminyak
When it comes to building a dream home, it pays to be flexible. Hong Kong-based couple Marcus Foley and Irene Capriz had drawn up plans for a house on their dream plot – a rice paddy on the quiet fringes of Seminyak, in Bali, Indonesia, five minutes from shops and restaurants and two minutes from the beach – when an opportunity presented itself.
“We were looking for reclaimed timber when we stumbled upon a 140-year-old Dutch colonial house on a plantation in Kalimantan [Borneo],” says Capriz, a vintage-furniture dealer. “Marcus fell in love with it and overnight we threw away the original plans and started again.”
The new design involved transporting the old house to Bali, where it would be re-erected and combined with contemporary elements: an elegant, open-sided pavilion, a swimming pool and a modern two-storey block containing bedrooms and a spa. The 1,000-square-metre complex would be called Villa 1880, after the date the Kalimantan house was originally built.
The old house was dismantled, the pieces of timber numbered and packed onto eight trucks for transport to Bali, where the structure was rebuilt from photographs.
We wanted to be sympathetic to Indonesian and Balinese architecture, materials and finishes, but we also wanted it to be modern and comfortable
“It was built of ironwood, which is the world’s strongest timber – it sinks in water,” says Foley, an interior designer. “Typically, these houses were on stilts with livestock underneath and a storage room in the attic. We did some modifications, but we tried to maintain its integrity.”
Blending the new and old buildings proved a challenge. To get the high ceilings Foley wanted for the outside living spaces, the old building was raised on iron pilings. Both the stilts and pilings were then painted white to match the slender pillars of the modern pavilion. A sleek terrazzo floor inlaid with brass flows seamlessly through the pavilion and under the old house into the “show kitchen” – one of two kitchens in the villa – helping to stitch the two buildings together.
