# Building Harmonie: what we would repeat and what we would not > Every other note on this page is built from regulation and market data. This one is built from the plot itself. Eleven are in Seminyak, three villas, one lobby, opened summer 2024. Here is the honest version, not the brochure version. *field report · 2026 feb 04 · https://beemyguest.ai/notes/building-harmonie.html* *by François, founder · four projects between the drawing board and the site, in Bali* Harmonie is not a case study we commissioned. It is the project that taught us most of what this office now sells as a service. We bought the land in 2022, broke ground, spent fifteen months in structural and finishing work plus a further few weeks on decoration, setup and the inevitable list of things nobody plans for, and opened to guests in the summer of 2024. It has been operating, and generating the numbers published elsewhere on this site, ever since. ## What we would repeat ### Three temperaments, one comfort standard Villa Soluna, Concrete Serenity and Casa Diplomatico share a wall and almost nothing else stylistically: zen minimalism, brutalist concrete, Mediterranean boho. What they do share, without exception, is the standard underneath the style: fully enclosed and air-conditioned living rooms, private pools, large living areas, a pool table, staff, and a seven-step water filtration system running in every villa. Guests choose the aesthetic that speaks to them. They never choose the level of comfort, because it never drops. ### One residence, three ways to book it The three villas share a single lobby and a common approach, but each has its own private entrance. That single design decision does more commercial work than almost anything else on the plot: three separate parties can each book their own villa independently, or one group can buy out the entire residence and effectively privatize eleven are in the middle of Seminyak. Small booking, big booking, same asset. ### Decoration as a guest-experience decision, not a styling decision Every material, every fixture and every detail was chosen by asking what a guest would actually notice, not what would photograph best. The water filtration system is the clearest example: guests never see it, but they feel it in the shower and taste it in the kitchen tap, every day of their stay. That is the standard we try to apply everywhere: invisible infrastructure, felt experience. ## What went wrong, honestly The two most expensive lessons on this project both trace back to the same decision: which company we trusted to manage the build. That project management contractor took shortcuts on aspects that do not show up at handover but show up within the first year of operating: waterproofing execution was inconsistent across the site, and site drainage was not planned with the rigor the land actually needed. Both problems are invisible on the day you hand over the keys. Both become very visible, and very expensive, the first time the rain does not go where it is supposed to. > We did not build Bee My Guest from a pitch deck. We built it from the problems Harmonie forced us to solve. We are not naming the contractor and we are not interested in relitigating it publicly. What matters for anyone reading this as a future investor is what changed in how we now select and manage build partners, because of exactly this experience. ## What we would do differently - **More villas, fewer standalone amenities.** Given the choice again, we would build a larger residence with shared premium facilities instead: sauna, ice bath, jacuzzi, spa and massage, a restaurant or café with lounge and coworking space, a padel court if the plot allows it. Land this expensive earns its keep faster when amenities are shared instead of duplicated villa by villa, and shared amenities can be designed to generate their own direct revenue, spa treatments, food and beverage, day access for non-resident guests, rather than sitting on the books as a pure comfort cost. We go deeper on this thinking in [a dedicated note](shared-estate-amenities.md). - **A real arrival moment, and more parking.** The lobby works functionally. It does not yet deliver the first-impression weight a residence at this price point deserves, and parking was sized for the brief we had, not the groups we now regularly host. - **Drainage and waterproofing planned first, not audited later.** Both would now be sequenced at the very start of design, with renewable energy, photovoltaic panels and rainwater harvesting, built in rather than retrofitted. - **A different way of choosing who builds it.** Past project references get checked, not just quoted. Waterproofing now carries an explicit contractual warranty. Payment is tied to passed inspections at defined stages, not to the calendar alone. - **A soft opening before the public one.** Some of what makes a residence run well only becomes visible once real guests arrive: housekeeping flow, staff training, the small friction points in check-in. A quiet, discounted opening window before the public launch is now standard practice, precisely so that a full-paying guest never discovers those problems for us. ## The land, in real numbers We secured the plot in 2022 at roughly 18 million rupiah per are per year on a [leasehold basis](bali-leasehold-explained.md). Comparable land nearby changed hands last year between 32 and 35 million rupiah per are per year, a nominal increase of 78 to 94 percent. That number alone is the kind of figure that belongs in a brochure, so we want to be more careful with it than a brochure would be. Over the same period the rupiah lost real value against the euro, from an average of roughly 15,600 IDR per EUR in 2022 to roughly 20,500 today, a depreciation of close to a quarter. Recalculated in constant euro terms, the same land moved from approximately €1,150 to somewhere between €1,560 and €1,700 per are per year, a real appreciation closer to 35 to 48 percent. Still a genuinely strong number. Not the inflated one. ## Compliance and tax rhythm Harmonie predates both [PP 28/2025](pp-28-2025-villa-licensing.md) and [PP 20/2026](pp-20-2026-tax-explained.md), but the underlying discipline they formalize, licensing sequenced into the build rather than rescued afterward, tax structure chosen deliberately rather than defaulted into, was already how this office worked by the time Harmonie opened. The two field notes on those regulations describe the framework in detail; Harmonie is where we learned why the framework matters in practice, not just on paper. ## What this means if you are underwriting a project with us Every mandate this office now carries inherits Harmonie's lessons directly: contractor vetting before ground is broken, drainage and waterproofing sequenced first, a soft opening before a public one, and a design brief that separates what a guest chooses from what a guest simply receives. The three villas are not a marketing set piece. They are the reason the process looks the way it does. Related: [How we outperform the Bali average](how-we-outperform-the-average.md) · [Leasehold in Bali, explained](bali-leasehold-explained.md) Real numbers do not travel in public. In a serious first conversation, we can open the Harmonie model: real occupancy, real rate, real revenue, operating cost lines, and what we would do differently. Figures: land pricing and construction timeline as recorded by Bee My Guest; EUR/IDR 2022 average and current rate from public exchange-rate data, checked 7 July 2026; occupancy, ADR and 2026 revenue milestone as published elsewhere on this site. This note describes one project's real outcome, not a forecast for any future mandate.