Fifteen domed pavilions are arranged through the garden at intervals that guarantee each one complete visual privacy from all others. Each pavilion is a self-contained world: a large domed bedroom with a blue stained-glass skylight that collects rainwater and distributes it to the plunge pools, a private garden with two cooling plunge pools positioned to catch the ocean view, a shaded baraza sun deck, and an enormous open wet-room with a rainwater shower.

The design means the distinction between inside and outside is almost entirely conceptual. Wooden-slatted shutters embrace wide-arched windows that face the ocean, and when they are open the sea breeze moves through the room without restriction. The ocean is present in every sense: visually, aurally, and in the quality of the air.

My wife made a comment on our second morning that has stayed with me since. She said the pavilion felt like the first room we had ever stayed in where the building seemed to be listening to the landscape around it rather than competing with it. I have not been able to improve on that description.

A dedicated butler serves each pavilion and is available throughout the day for anything from morning coffee delivery to arranging the evening’s dinner location to drawing a bath while we were still on the beach. The butler service is one of the elements that guests consistently cite as what makes Kilindi exceptional: genuinely personalised, thoughtful, and never intrusive.