00:01Hi guys, my name is Alejandro. Come take a peek at my photos. It's very sunny and beautiful today. I'm
00:08excited.
00:16This is Pasiflora. This was the very first choglo that I ever built in Bali.
00:22And it's incredible. Of course, it holds the most special place in my heart.
00:27This particular choglo is from Java. Most of the, all of the choglo come from Java.
00:33But this one we found here in Bali already. And what I thought I was in love.
00:39Because there's the simplicity to it. But if you look closely, it has a tiny bit of blue in the
00:46wood.
00:47And then the structure can be quite ornate. But I like this one.
00:53And it has three tiers, which does symbolize that it belonged to an aristocratic family.
00:59But very, very simple.
01:04Because this is the very first house, actually, I built in Bali.
01:07And I knew I had to somehow close off the bedroom. Because we couldn't leave it open.
01:13But I thought, I'm going to have to have another panel to go and fill in.
01:18So I went down to Denpasar. And I looked on the side of the road.
01:23And lo and behold, we see this panel.
01:29The height and the width. That's serendipity. That is pure magic.
01:35It was exactly the height in both directions.
01:39So then we put it up here. And my builder, he was like,
01:42Oh, we have a big problem, Ali. I'm like, oh no. Now what?
01:46He said, you know, in Bali, this is...
01:48We cannot have the sun going down into the...
01:52Down, pointing downwards. That is very, very, very...
01:57Prone to black magic if you do that.
01:59So I'm like, well, what are we going to do? This is no problem.
02:01As long as we can turn the sun upside down and push it back up again,
02:07pointing in the right direction. So that's what he did.
02:09And then the other thing that I did, this is actually a door.
02:16I thought, what happens if we just flip it upside down?
02:19And this is... I love to do this kind of thing.
02:22I do it all the time now, but that was the first time.
02:24And it turned out that now this turned into a beautiful shutter.
02:32So this is new wood. You know, it's not like everything is old wood.
02:36And those panels are gone, which we used someplace else.
02:39And this had become too small as a bedroom.
02:45So I decided... This is during COVID actually.
02:49I decided to pop it out.
02:51And so you can see here, I decided...
02:55I'd like to show our markings.
02:58So you can see that I've used a completely different tile on purpose.
03:02And I pushed open, you know, this whole piece here.
03:07The bed is now turned around looking this way.
03:09We have a view in this direction.
03:12Basically now, we have this big, giant bedroom.
03:15So the houses, they're flexible, you know.
03:18And I love that. They keep evolving as we need them to.
03:28Everything in this house was the first time and it was so much fun.
03:32Because I had been designing really high-end kitchens in Southern California.
03:37$100,000 for a kitchen.
03:38And when we got to having to do, you know, this kitchen, I thought,
03:42Oh, what are we going to do?
03:43It's going to cost a fortune.
03:49It was kind of a radical...
03:50I just set these rules for myself.
03:53It turns out that what I wanted was actually a celebration of simple living, number one,
04:00which I learned from my mom.
04:02And that's all my mother.
04:04But in addition to that, to really just sort of say,
04:07Okay.
04:08I tuned into Bali and I said,
04:10This is what we can do here.
04:15Bali is the only place in the world where these Alangalang roofs are made.
04:20You have this amazing Alangalang roof, which is a grass.
04:22It's a thatch roof, basically.
04:24And over the years, I've perfected it.
04:27And basically, my thatch roofs are complete insulation.
04:33They are wonderful acoustically.
04:37And guess what?
04:38They last for 18 to 20 years.
04:45Something I didn't invent.
04:47You know, when I got here, there were open bathrooms.
04:50But I just thought this is one of the amazing, really amazing things about Bali.
04:55It's to be able to take a bath or a shower under the shower or in the rain.
05:02It's so special.
05:03Yeah, it's a simple, beautiful bathroom that looks very different from our other countries.
05:15So, this is this gorgeous pool that I decided to do.
05:19Sometimes I think about things for a long, long time.
05:23Originally, we didn't want to have pools here because we wanted to preserve the white paddies.
05:27So, we had a shared pool on another property.
05:31But then, during COVID, I thought, I want to build a private pool at Pasifloda.
05:37And another property of mine, I had already experimented with these white stones.
05:42And they look, they are amazing.
05:44Only my workers have perfected this.
05:48And basically, it makes it look like, you know, you're in the Caribbean or something.
05:53The color of the water with these amazing white stones is extraordinary.
05:57So, now, again, the houses are flexible.
06:02And I was able to add this.
06:04And now you have this artisan-crafted.
06:06And now you can jump into this artisan-crafted swimming pool.
06:12With a view of the rice paddy as well.
06:24It becomes my DNA for my work.
06:27But when I saw the rice paddy for the first time I came to Bali, I thought, this is so
06:32beautiful.
06:34And so, when I leave this land, I thought, I'm going to include it as my garden.
06:40Because it's a changing landscape.
06:42It's like having a work of art in your garden.
06:46You know, that is constantly evolving and sharing things.
06:48That's number one.
06:49Number two, somebody else is taking care of it for you.
06:54So, that's a whole piece of the garden.
06:56You don't have to worry about it.
06:58And then, number three, you get a little bit of rice at the end.
07:01You know?
07:02So, that was the other hand that I decided.
07:06And I always encourage all of my clients later on to lease rice paddy.
07:12You know?
07:12Just to be able to keep us rice.
07:14In my own case, I lease a small piece in between two of my jugglers.
07:20And then, I did a project for a friend as well inside.
07:24And she and I released a large piece of rice paddy in between us.
07:29Just to keep us.
07:30This is not to do with green zone or anything.
07:33Just to release the rice to keep it as rice.
07:36You know?
07:37Forever.
07:38So, it means that we've created this beautiful little neighborhood.
07:41People sort of, they come to this little piece of Pinotana, which gets, you know, pretty
07:46built, overbuilt maybe.
07:47A little bit.
07:48And we have, we'll have this beautiful rice paddy.
08:01Thank you, Valerie Interiors.
08:03That was wonderful.
08:04See you guys later.
08:05Bye-bye.
08:05Bye-bye.
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08:06Bye-bye.
08:06Bye-bye.
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08:07Bye-bye.
08:08Bye-bye.
08:08Bye-bye.
08:10Bye-bye.
08:11You
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