Kottamba Kanda

Kottamba is the sea-almond tree, kanda is the hill. The name is the address: a low hill on Sri Lanka's south coast where these broad-leaved trees hold the light, four minutes on foot above the water at Hiriketiya.

The house sits at the top of it: two white storeys under a steep terracotta roof, a colonnaded veranda, and a green-stone infinity pool on the terrace in front, its edge dropping away to a lower garden and the jungle below. Four bedrooms, a detached garden pavilion, and a lawn large enough to lose the children in.