A Haven From The Bustle

Villa Souane Chbar (Jean Loncle)

June 17, 2011
By Mike Eckel
The Wall Street Journal

Villa Souane Chbar (“garden villa” in Khmer) sits along the Mekong River, 30 minutes by car outside of Phnom Penh, off a dirt road marked with shacks, an open-air pool hall, stray chickens and a Buddhist temple. In the morning, the warm breezes and the soft put-put-put of fishing boat motors drift up from the river.

The four-bedroom house offers Beatrix Latham, a 68-year-old French-born woman, a haven from the crowds of Bangkok, where she lives most of the time. And it’s a showcase for her collection of Khmer, Indian, Burmese and Chinese art.

Ms. Latham moved to Bangkok in 1985, accompanying her husband, a soil scientist. She made her first trip to Cambodia in 1992, driven by a fascination with Southeast Asian art, to study full-time and explore the region. Back then, she said, the country was mess of landmines, victims of war and curfews. She participated in archeological digs in and around Angkor Wat.

“It was fascinating to feel a world at a complete standstill, broken bit by bit by events totally unconnected with the archeology we were studying,” she said.

In 1995, she helped start Cambodge Soir, a French-language newspaper that folded in September 2010, and decided it was time to build a more permanent home of her own in Phnom Penh.

Three years later, Ms. Latham bought two small plots totaling 2,500 square meters on the right bank of the Mekong River. The tenants at the time lived in palm-leaf-roofed houses and made a living fishing and growing cassava. She declined to say how much she paid for the land.

“As a longtime resident in Buddhist countries—although not a Buddhist myself—I asked the nearby temple to have a blessing ceremony when they started digging the foundation,” she said. “The workers were rather surprised, not expecting a foreigner to act accordingly to their traditions. It was greatly appreciated.”

She enlisted French-Cambodia architects LBL International to craft a single-floor, U-shaped, 540-square-meter villa built around an infinity-type swimming pool with views stretching down to the Mekong River. The design was inspired by ancient Khmer architecture as well as by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Visitors climb a short set of stairs and enter the building space through a portico, which features columns that echo those from the 11th-century Baphuon temple near Angkor Wat. Two statues of the Hindu god Ganesh overlook a fountain whose waters trickle down into the 25-by-11-meter pool and a separate children’s pool at the far end of the terrace.

Outside, fruit trees—mango, jackfruit, banana, breadfruit—and other flora, such as frangipani and bougainvillea, shade the house. Inside, coffee-colored ceramic tiles and dark wood trim create a languid atmosphere. An entrance foyer with a towering eight-meter ceiling of exposed beams leads to a library, the kitchen and the poolside patio.

A modern Italian chandelier lights the dining room, which is lined with glass shelves to display art. The 65-square-meter living room looks out onto the pool and the lush side lawn. A far corner of the room features a sunken space with built-in bench seating around a small water fountain.

On the opposite side of the house, two bedrooms have walk-in closets, and the corner bedrooms feature floor-to-ceiling windows. Perched on the northern corner of the villa is a Tuscan-style, two-story tower with a view of the river where Ms. Latham often sits for morning coffee and afternoon cocktails.

An alfresco kitchen is nestled just off the pool and the edge of the terrace, where during rainy season, the Mekong waters rise up to the base of the terrace.

To decorate the villa, Ms. Latham sought inspiration from her father, who was a designer and decorator for opera and ballet companies. The rooms are filled with Chinese armoires, imperial statues and Asian oil paintings.

Ms. Latham admits that the concept of a luxury villa in Cambodia is still unusual to many, given the prevailing perceptions of the country as a home for sweltering heat, mosquitos, poverty and the scars of the Khmer Rouge.

“Maybe it is even controversial,” she said, “but it is my own style, a combination of beauty, comfort, well-thought details and excellent quality of building.”