# Villa Unity — Our Story & FAQ

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https://www.villa-unity.com/about.html

Our Story · Bophut Hills

# The house that lockdown designed
How a six-week trip became six years on Koh Samui, a question became a design brief, and a family home in the Bophut hills became Villa Unity.

## It began with eight days
In February 2020 Richard was at a trade show in Melbourne, doing the job he had spent a year building — opening the Asia-Pacific region for a Swiss company providing live interpretation for international events. A business that existed because people gathered in rooms. He watched the rooms begin to close, flew home to Bangkok, and told his wife Jimlim they should leave the city.

Eight days later they did. A suitcase each, the bikes, their two daughters — the youngest eight weeks old — and a car borrowed from Jimlim's aunt. Six hours to Chumphon, four more to the pier, then an hour and a half across the water. They had booked an Airbnb for five or six weeks. Then the island closed behind them.

Stuck on Samui with a collapsed industry, they began asking a question that turned out to be a design brief: if we have to be stuck somewhere — what would we want that place to have? The answer became a spa floor (the gyms were shut), a fifteen-metre pool (their eldest spent lockdown living in water), five levels (a family plus guests plus grandparents, together without being on top of each other), and solar with battery. They bought the land in 2021. The build took five years.

## Seven houses taught them where to build
Seven houses across Samui taught the family about access; two beachfront houses taught them that sunset on a Thai beach is a communal hour. So: a hillside — connected in every direction, private on every side. They found the plot via a for-sale sign. Two things stopped them: the elephant sanctuary next door, and the green wall of trees on the bottom boundary — canopy-to-sea views above, complete privacy beneath.

## Unity
The name was chosen in 2020, the year togetherness was missing; the logo is the family itself. Over five years of building, the name was tested more than they expected. Villa Unity was finished anyway.

> "This isn't a property we manage. It's our home." — Richard & Jimlim

## The owners, and where they go
Richard came to Thailand in 2016, following Jimlim home; thirty countries in their first year; married in Bangkok, 2017; two daughters, both born in Thailand; Samui residents since March 2020. When guests are in residence the estate is entirely theirs — the family stays elsewhere on the island, minutes away, as present or as invisible as guests would like.

## The details that stay with you
- The materials: granite cobble arrival, travertine steps, Sukabumi stone water feature, terrazzo living level; the garden spirit house is carved from monk-blessed marble.
- Emmy: their eldest daughter, then barely talking, called the elephants "Emmy". The Haven's café opened eighteen months before the house was finished — walk there before breakfast.
- Six o'clock: cicadas each evening; a wooded gully below with a stream and seasonal waterfall.

Villa Unity has never been rented. It opens to its first staying guests in December 2026.

## FAQ highlights
- Why "Villa Unity"? Chosen in 2020 — the year togetherness was missing; the logo is the family. Tested by five hard years of building; finished anyway.
- Who designed it? Architecture: James Atkinson, Fractal Architecture and Design, Koh Samui. Interiors: Julius Kanand, formerly a project director at Gensler — his first project in Thailand.
- Do the owners live there? Yes — between stays. During stays the estate is entirely the guests'; the family stays elsewhere on the island.
- Rented before? Never. First guests December 2026, booked direct. Founding-season stays include return transfers, daily private chef and a $100 spa-floor credit.