14th September 1997

Travel

Chance to pretend!

By Royston Ellis

Pix by Gemunu Amarasinghe

Blue grass from the garden of the Woodside bungalow six miles from Urugala and 30 miles from Kandy, was used to start the lush rolling lawns of Hunas Falls Hotel. The grass has since nurtured Sri Lanka’s only six-hole golf course.

Hunas Falls hotel was begun in 1971 as a holiday bungalow for tea planters. In 1976 it was taken over as a rest house becoming, in the 1990s, a luxury hotel standing on 123 acres of scrubland, wilderness and tea.

It takes 45 minutes to drive the tortuous road from Kandy to the hotel. On the final lap the road passes through the courtyard of a tea factory where packeted tea is on sale. While the hotel’s exterior bears a resemblance to the galvanised architecture of a tea factory, the interior of one wing conjures up the fantasy of an eccentric planter’s home.

The hotel has two suites, one of Scottish influence, The Highlander suite, and the other bearing a Japanese influence, the Katsura Suite. The romance of the past has returned.

The Highlander suite which we look at today with its modern recreation of all the glorious tat and over-the-top decor, is spectacular.

The Highlander Suite has its own entrance from the hotel’s garden and golf course. Once inside it is tempting to forget about the hotel and pretend that, yes, you are lord of the manor. If you have ever wanted to stay in a colonial bungalow, a night or two in these surroundings will enchant you.

Perhaps it is their location atop windy hillsides that bestows on plantation homes their air of the gothic: mists swirling around granite towers, and floorboards creaking as sarong-clad servants pad along darkened corridors.

Gothic, meaning exaggerated, eerie and historical, is the delightful inspiration for the Highlander. Those steps from the garden lead to a wooden door with wrought iron hinges. It swings open to reveal a lobby with rough plastered walls hung with dungeon manacles, a spear and stocks.

The dining room accentuates the gothic with conical, wood-framed, lead squared windows in an arch, and rich red drapes in folds.

The table could have come from a planter’s dining room except it is too elegant and unworn.

It has grand, upholstered chairs carved with claws at the end of each wooden arm. Wooden beams straddle the ceiling; heraldic devices hang above the brick fireplace which, alas, only burns in imitation.

The open plan kitchen adjoins the dining room and presents a medley of shining copper, terracotta jugs, polished wood and whitewashed brick. The copper flue is adorned with copper pots and pans.

Behind a door that could lead to a cellar hides a refrigerator. There are spice containers in a rack and you suspect a bungalow appu would drool at the chance to cook there. Instead there is a butler in attendance who could turn his hand to a flambed dish.

The sitting room softens the macho extravagance of the dining room with burgundy walls, white strips as frames and a pair of comfy chintzy sofas. Another ersatz fireplace helps create a cosiness that is topped off with lavish curtains at the windows. By the door to the bedroom, a desk has enough pigeon holes for a flock of letters to roost.

The bedroom has the clean lines of uncluttered decor and a sophisticated sheen to it, more middle class than medieval. The hotel’s own description refers to a "marble master toilet with its hot spa..."

That such an extraordinary creation as the interior of a gothic bungalow should be part of a modern, luxury hotel is amazing. It manages to blend the splendid, grand isolation of a planter’s lifestyle with mock medieval fittings (that aren’t to be taken too seriously), to create something that is definitely not a home from home. Staying there is a chance to pretend; and to enjoy a hint of a bygone era.

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