In 1998 on a trip to Bali the Wagstaff family met I Nengah Suma Antara. Although they didn't know it at the time, this was the beginning of both a friendship and the partnership that would eventually lead to the creation of "Rumah Pantai Bali"… the "Bali Beach House". At the time they met, Nengah was working as a driver for the owner of the Home Stay in which the Wagstaff's were living in Ubud, and as a professional cook during the evenings. His great dream was to return to his home village of Amed and open his own restaurant. As the friendship grew in the weeks that the Wagstaff's spent with Nengah, it was decided that if he could find the land, they would see what they could do about helping his dream become a reality. For Brock Wagstaff, a California architect, the prospect of doing a project in a place with a heritage as culturally rich as Bali, carried with it it's own rewards. It took almost two years for Nengah to find the right piece of land, and in the interest of minimizing the financial burden, the Wagstaff's brought in two other American families as partners, including another architect, Roland Mays. Faced with an abundance of new restaurants already being constructed along the Amed coast, the project evolved from a restaurant and three small bungalows, to two larger houses. This would provide a home for the Suma family, and a larger house they could manage and which would showcase Nengah's talents as both a chef and a guide. Because the two architects wanted to be involved in the building process, the actual construction only took place while one or both of them were personally on the site, and involved not only Nengah, but often as many as thirty local villagers. It became, over time, what can only be described as a "labor of love". In the following pictures we would like to share with you a brief glimpse of the construction process that led to the creation of "Rumah Pantai Bali".