Tk.tk.tk.tk.tk… The pitter-pattering sound of claws coming from just above me as I attempt desperately to complete some work in the dead of the night sends shivers of alarm down my spine. Just outside the oversized window of my spacious Forest View villa, where darkness has blanketed the world, the wind howls angrily, creating a nocturnal orchestra with the pelting rain.
“Monkey. It must a monkey that’s crawling on the roof,” I say to myself, in part to curb the onset of heebie-jeebies from enveloping me. Slightly appeased at my own explanation, I quickly reach for the bedside switch, triggering all the lights in the room. Suddenly, the night doesn’t seem so “ominous” anymore and I happily continue with the rest of my work, sprawled on the bed like a beach whale.
“Why-la so scared,” I admonish myself as the tap-tap-tapping of the keys on my keyboard pierce the silence. So much for wanting to be in nature! Ensconced in a wonderful villa, surrounded by the forest and invisible night creatures, this IS nature-living at its best. It’s the very reason why The Kasturi, located on Pantai Chendor in Cherating, Pahang had been on my “must-stay” list to begin with.
Sheepishly, I reflect on just how different this beachside resort, designed by renowned Singaporean-born, Malaysian architect, Hijjas Kasturi is in the daytime. With the rainforest framing it and the beach, overlooking the South China Sea at the front, it’s a delightful haven for those seeking respite from the madding crowd and wanting to be one with nature.
The 23-keys resort – of which the majority comprises beach-front villas with their own private pools – is located about three hours’ drive from KL. Built on 30 acres of coastal forest with 800 metres of East Coach beach, The Kasturi has exclusive access to another kilometre of beach towards the north, reaching the estuary of Sungai Pak Siak on the South China Sea.
The sudden hooting of a night creature from somewhere in the inky canvas outside jolts me from my reverie. A quick glance at my watch shows 4am. Damn, time to go to bed. In just a few hours, I’ll get the chance to explore the resort further with its designer, Hijjas and his lovely wife, Angela. “Come on day!” I whisper to myself before slowly succumbing to dreamland.
CONSTRUCT, NOT DESTRUCT
“Ahhh, it’s a shame that you’re in the forest villa, and not the beach-front one. It’s much nicer because you walk in and the sea is in front of you,” exclaims Angela Hijjas, the moment I emerge from my villa and join her at the elevated walkway where she and husband Hijjas had been patiently waiting for me to go on our tour.
I smile and tell her that being in the forest and hearing the chirping of birds around me is exactly what I wanted from this sojourn. The couple, clad in almost matching ensembles, beam in pleasure at my comment and we slowly make our way down the winding path, stopping occasionally to marvel at the beauty of dappled sunlight streaming through the leaves on this cool sunny morning. The only evidence of a “tumult” the night before is the presence of tiny pools of water, which have collected under some of the trees.
“We opened this resort in September 2017,” begins Angela as we continue with our morning walk.
“It took us three years to build it. In fact, it was a year late. We actually wanted to open it in time for Hijjas’ 80th birthday.” The resort is operated by Rimbun Dahan, a company owned by Hijjas’ family.
Their objective, I duly discover, was to stay small so that they’d be able to minimise the footprint on this site. In 2014, the project began with the family building a turtle hatchery on the beach to compensate for the inevitable environmental damage that any development was wont to incur.
As with the family’s previous project – Hotel Penaga in Georgetown Penang – they opted for local materials during the construction, evidence of which can be seen in the rubble walls, terrazzo floors and the re-milling on site of all the recycled timber, which was reclaimed from old buildings. Small plants, elaborates Angela, were saved from the inevitable clearing, and bagged for future use in landscaping. Meanwhile, the big trees were saved by perforating buildings.
The 83-year-old Hijjas, the man behind the design of the famous Club Med Cherating and Tanjong Jara Resort in Terengganu, elevated the walkways and some of the structures so that he could minimise the contact between the architecture of The Kasturi and the ground. “When things are elevated, you get more breeze anyway,” offers Angela with a smile. In addition, the family built tanks to save rain water from each chalet, which was subsequently channelled to the garden and for toilet flushing.
Taking the green approach further, the mountains of sawdust which had collected from the carpenters’ workshops were used to mulch the sandy soil. The Kasturi also has solar-assisted air conditioning in the main building, and there are plans to install solar panels on the car park roof in the future.
“To be honest, I didn’t really want anything touched. It was all forest before,” confides Angela, adding: “But you can’t. Hijjas’ rationale was that he’d bought the land and we even had to fork out money for extra land from the government, so we had to make it worthwhile. I guess that’s the problem; you buy a piece of land that’s gorgeous and you just have to develop it!”
Nodding, her soft-spoken husband chips in: “So we compromised. We decided to put the buildings along the beach so that we’d be able to minimise any impact on the forests behind it. So you still get that sense of coming through the forest before getting to your accommodation.”
The chalets here, A-Frame structures with roofs that resemble folded origami, front the beach and come with a private pool and deck. Meanwhile, the main building is the last structure along the elevated forest walkway. This is where the reception area, main swimming pool, restaurant, bar and lounge, fitness facilities and meeting spaces are located.
The main building also has six Studios and Suites for those who prefer to be closer to the facilities, in addition to a Penthouse that consists of a very spacious double bedroom suite that looks out to a beautiful beachside vista.
“We had a good team of landscape designer, interior designer, and we had our hands in almost everything that you see here, from the furnishing to the décor etc. Although the process of realising the resort was fun, it was exhausting,” recalls Angela, adding: “We’d come here on a Sunday and drive home on a Thursday. Friday we’d go to the office and then Saturday head out again to search for materials. On Sunday we’d come back again and this happened week after week, for about two and half, three years
. Now I’m finally getting my life back!”
Asked what they considered to have been the biggest challenge when they undertook this project, Angela, who originally hails from Melbourne, Australia, is the first to reply: “The fact that he’s a builder and I’m a conservationist!”
“We had so many arguments!” chips in Hijjas, eyes dancing mischievously.
Rolling her eyes in mock exasperation, Angela interjects good-naturedly: “I wasn’t prepared to let him just bulldoze everything. We argued a lot, yes. I mean, he builds things but I just couldn’t let him do it on his own!”
PRESERVING CULTURE
Soon enough, we arrive in front of a towering structure that looks like it once housed the workers’ quarters. I ask Hijjas what it is. “Oh, that used to be the staff quarters,” he replies, confirming my deduction. “There are six rooms upstairs and plenty of space downstairs for conducting workshops. We’re going to turn that building into a place where traditional crafts will be taught and even have residency programmes for teaching crafts.”
Smiling, Angela chips in: “We’re working with Kraftangan Malaysia to see whether we can set up a training programme with western designers who can look at the materials that the crafts people here are using and somehow inject a new aesthetic. Because the problem with current craft design is that they’re pretty AWFUL! They’re making stuff that you wouldn’t want to buy or give as gifts!”
When she first arrived on the East Coast, Angela recalls that a lot more of the region’s local materials, like mengkuang (screwpine leaves), were used to produce delightful handicrafts. “But now we’re getting all these strange wooden things that are actually Balinese. What we’d like to do is to try and develop the marketing opportunities as well as design aspects. But this is still in the planning stages.”
Ultimately, chips in Hijjas, who’s also known for being a huge supporter of the arts in Kuala Lumpur, they’re trying to encourage the revival and preservation of our precious culture. “The Kasturi is going to be more than just a luxury beachside resort; it’ll be a centre for culture as well.”
A NEW VOCABULARY
As we resume our stroll, making our way slowly towards the beach, I learn that the back story to The Kasturi’s birth is also pretty interesting. Shares Angela: “We’ve had a piece of land further north since the 70s (when we were first married) but we had no access to it. It was actually on the beach but you had to walk along the beach to get there because there was no road. Then we had to buy extra land from the state government to get access. That was THIS piece of land.”
Nodding, Hijjas recollects: “That was part of the deal with the state government. They told us if we wanted to buy, we had to build a five star hotel, otherwise we couldn’t get it. So we did. The beach is one of the longest stretches of beaches here, stretching almost 1km.”
And once the famed architect had what he wanted, Hijjas, the man responsible for some of the most significant buildings in South East Asia, knew exactly what he wanted to do. “I wanted to design something which was not in the vocabulary at all; something completely new.”
And he’s done JUST that with The Kasturi…
The Kasturi, KM 32.5, Jalan Kuantan, Kemaman, 26080 Cherating, Pahang
Details at www.the-kasturi.com