A Traditional'Swiss Family Robinson'Beach Villa for Sale in Taun Harbor, Lombok, South West Coast Area, Lombok Island, Indonesia

Fernando's Hideaway on a Tropical Island - Lombok, Indonesia

A "Swiss Family Robinson' beach villa" with additional bungalow, a weekender, long term holiday or retirement home in Lombok traditional style with income potential. Its unique even in Lombok where small absolute beach front properties are almost non existant. The double story villa was built using 80 year old rough hewn timbers from two traditional houses from an adjacent island with double layer woven bamboo walls and thatch roof. Its authentic with holes and marks of the original building use evident. It was erected in ad-hoc island style, there were no building plans, it grew from the artistic mind of an old Indonesian working only with the timbers he had. Yet it offers practical western living in a tropical style.

The bungalow is built from coconut palm timbers even the flooring with a thatch roof and verandah. It is also in traditional Lombok tropical style with a ceiling fan and ensuite bathroom. Sit on the verandah and watch the moonrise in a shimmering path across the bay. Romantic, what tropical life is about... peace and tranquility rarely found in our world today. The serenity of watching the moon rise, illuminating the small off shore islands with twinkling lights of the resort and traditional homes is something hard to explain in words.

Take the sealed beautiful scenic coastal road from Lembar Harbor meandering through traditional fishing villages and paddy fields on either optional routes to Taun Bay (pronounced Tou-un)50 kilometers from the city of Mataram. Taun is a large bay where the focal point is an Indonesian village / harbor, jetty and numerous retirement homes around the shores of the Bay. In the harbor there are traditional outriggers boats for hire (with crew) offering trips to the smaller islands and further afield if required.

This villa being on the west side of the bay catches the morning sunrise and by late morning the palms shade most of the land and buildings, by 4 o'clock the beach is in shade. There is a minimarket 150m down the road and Taun Harbor village is 1.5 kilometers away. It has municiple electricity power supply and there is provision for a back up generator. Fresh water is pumped from a well 100 meters inland for Rp900,000 (approximately US$100) rental per year. The property has a surrounding solid wall for privacy except on the beach front where a seawall stops the sea at the highest tides from encroaching on the garden area. On high tides the sea laps against the wall and shallow draft vessels can anchor against the wall. Otherwise vessels must anchor about 50 meters out. The sea journey from Lombok's main harbor is about 45 minutes by speedboat and can be the preferred way of getting to the villa. There are three small islands directly in front of the villa about 20 minutes by speed boat, one has a small resort that we often visit for breakfast or lunch, another is the home of a pearl farm and the third island, the closest to the main island has only one small rundown Robinson Carusoe style bar with a beautiful white sand beach for snorkling, swimming and sunbathing. The passage from Lembar Harbor passes between this small island and the main island of Lombok. When travelling by boat we often stop off there for a beer, BYO because they often run out but we pay a small corkage fee for using the beach and a swim on the way to the villa. These three small island are fish sancturies and the resort island (Gilli Nangu, check on the web) breeds turtles for re-introduction to the sea. Further south there are five more small islands some with resorts but all offering great snorkling and diving on good coral reefs and of course food and refreshments for lunch or dinner. A little further south is the world famous Desert Point surfing beach at Bangko Bangko. For most of the year the sea is tranquil tropical but for 4 months the seas come in from the open ocean and there are small choppy waves in the bay generally in the afternoons. It is difficult to express in words the beauty and tranquility of the area.

The land area of the villa property is approximately 600m2 with absolute beach frontage looking out over the three small islands. Its a public beach but only occasionally do we have local children playing on the beach, otherwise its as close to a private beach as you can get. Nestled between the beach and hills covered in coconut palms (the villa land has 11 producing around 300 coconuts a year) Great and safe swimming for children, parents and guests. A berugah (Indonesian cultural four posted elevated platform sunshade) overlooks the beach, a favourite place for parties or just chilling out. Four steps built into the seawall take you to the beach. The garden area is now all sand (for maintainance purposes)lends itself to evening BBQ's, we set a table out in the garden and chat while the staff cook fish on a tradition grill. We keep 2 permanent male staff, one for general chores in the daytime Rp400,000 (S$45 / month) and the other Rp1,000,000 (US$110 /month) for night security but they are optional however they make the villa a total chill out hideaway, all mundane chores are done for you for a small monthly outlay.

The villa complex consists of three traditional style buildings, the main villa with two bedrooms, one ground floor and one 1st floor which has an ensuite and balcony. The ground floor consists of the second bedroom, a verandah and storage room. There is a separate kitchen, staff room and staff toilet building and an old bamboo shack that was the construction site office that we use for storage and a separate bungalow with ensuite. The bungalow is set close to the seawall for use with for guests or rented to tourists. There is space enough for two more similar bungalows if required to create a mini tourist resort. The two adjacent beach front properties are vacant (no buildings) and could be for sale if expansion is required. It has development potential if an owner wants to make it self-supporting. In the past we have hired out the bungalow for Rp300,000 / night (US$35)

The Taun / Sekotong area is a government designated tourist development area and slowly more private investment is coming to the area. Behind the villa on the other side of the main road a hotel development company has walled off a large tract of land in readiness to building a resort, a plus for the value of the villa. We own another piece of beach front land nearby where we intend to build a restaurant. We were the second party to invest in this area and since then there has been significant growth but it it is still a quiet area with profit potential.

But besides all of this it is a place to relax, to chill out and enjoy Lombok and tropical island living at its best. We have loved it but must move on. See the photo's to fully understand the beauty and living potential of this tropical paradise.