Lunuganga Estate

Lunuganga should be on everyone’s Sri Lankan itinerary. We spent 3 nights and fell in love with this place. The property is breathtakingly beautiful and the staff are the best of the best! Special shout out to Suneth for looking after us and the Chef Tharaka for making our most memorable meals in Sri Lanka and teaching us to make traditional rice and curry. The photos do not do this place justice but it is the most magical property and staying there is bucket list worthy. I highly recommend doing the cooking demonstration, enjoying the sunset with some G&Ts and arranging a private dinner with your loved one while you’re there. We had the most memorable and amazing time! Can’t recommend more highly.

My husband and I appreciate history and architecture and picked Lunuganga Estate to have a tranquil stay away from the city and a differentiated experience. Upon arrival, we were impressed with the natural beauty, greenery and landscaping behind Mr Geoffrey Bawa's design philosophy of his country home. While we appreciate the preservation of Mr Bawa's home that he acquired in 1948 in its original form as much as possible, the state of the rooms have clearly deteriorated over time which could have been better maintained with some repairs and restoration, especially in the bathroom of our master suite, which was musty and the toilet bowl reeked of pee smell. We travel extensively and have stayed at many heritage hotels across the world but were rather disappointed with the standard of cleanliness and the state of the bathroom. On the first day we were greeted with a giant lizard in our covered fruit basket, only to find many more in our room hiding behind paintings and cupboards. But what was most off-putting was having a huge cockroach running around our room towards our bed in the middle of the second night, which made us very uncomfortable and disconcerted as we wondered if there were more lurking in our room that night that left us both sleepless and paranoid. It is regrettable to say that the Lunuganga Estate falls short of international standards befitting of the price it charges and the experience one would expect. Nevertheless, the waiting staff, butler, property manager and our guide were excellent, to say the least. The guided tour given by Mr Bawa's last butler was very well conducted, as he shared many anecdotes of Mr Bawa's personal life in his country home.