Our Story
ALICE & STEFANO
In 2021 we left Italy to search for our island.
Lovers of travel and good food, lovers of Asia. We always dreamed of a house with palm trees in the garden.
Born and raised in Italy, on Lake Como. Both class of 1988, we met in 2007. We built a secure life, bought a house with a view of our beautiful mountains and worked hard to get two "good jobs."
Since 2010 we have traveled far and wide. USA, Southeast Asia, South America, Africa, India.
Every time we returned home, the desire to move to Asia became greater and greater. "I'll drop everything and leave." The classic phrase that everyone says, but then no one has the courage to actually do it.
Well ... in 2020 we decided it was time to really do it. During the first lockdown, we rediscovered the value of our priorities, of being able to do what we want when we want. We asked ourselves, "How much is our time worth?" We dropped everything, and exactly one year later, we left on a one-way ticket in search of our new home. We did not want to live a life with the regret of not even trying.
We landed in Sri Lanka, the only country in Asia that despite Covid had reopened to tourism. Our only request: to spend 14 days in quarantine in a hotel that was "certified." We chose a hotel on a beach that looked beautiful from the photos, Kabalana, in a small village that 6 years earlier on our first trip to Sri Lanka we had never heard of: Ahangama.
We fall in love with everything: the golden sand, the waves, the silence and a Sri Lanka emptied of tourism, pure and authentic. We travel the length and breadth of the country for six months. Tea plantations, elephants, the sand dunes, Hindu temples and Buddhist pagodas.
We decide that our next home will be here, 8000km away from the one we had sold in Italy.
"THE HOUSE WITH PINK BATHS"
On January 29, 2022, for the first time we entered the garden of what we now call Home. A house was actually already there, and it had four pink bathrooms. And then there was a big garden with very tall palm trees, monkeys, the sounds of peacocks, and lots and lots of squirrels.
For a couple of months we continued our search of land and houses...but the "house with pink bathrooms" was always our favorite.
We rented it for a month, to see if we could really feel it as home ... in that month we thought big. We designed a pool out of branches and leaves, the very long ones that fell from the palm trees. We dreamed of building a new house with bathrooms from which to view the jungle and renovating the existing one. And then a restaurant, why not?
SEVEN MONTHS
On May 4, 2022, we started work. Seven months. And that dream had become a reality. We had renovated one house, built another. We had a pool nestled in the jungle and a restaurant with a pink floor. That's right -- because this was "the house with pink bathrooms" for us, and pink it had to stay.
Seven months in which we gave all of ourselves. During an economic crisis that crushed the country and left people without gas for cooking and without gasoline. Gasoline that was also needed to generate electricity. But our dream was just too big -- and instead of thinking about the fact that we couldn't even get gas for our scooter, we spent those dark evenings designing every inch of what is now called Casa Tikiri. Every inch, material, shape and color. Every table, chair, lamp or mirror. All handmade, custom-made, just for us.
In January 2023 we officially opened the doors of Casa Tikiri. For us and for you: 300 meters from that beach that made us fall in love in 2021: Kabalana. We wanted to create a special place, inspired by the local culture and the beauty of this island, where you could feel at home. We hope we succeeded.
WHY "TIKIRI"?
Since we left we had a name in our heads--we didn't know where, when, and how, but our new home would be called that.
But no, this house changed our minds. When we first entered this house, we immediately noticed that instead of a house number it had a nameplate that said TIKIRI ( ටකිරි )
It was explained to us that "Tikiri" in Sri Lanka is both a surname and a proper name for a little girl, but it is also used as an adjective with the meaning of "little," "pretty," "cute."
Our idea of "home" has always been exactly that-something small, cozy, pretty, and unique. We could only choose to keep this name and make it our own.
CASA TIKIRI . An Italian word and a Sinhalese word. A mix of culture, beauty and traditionality.
RICE VIEW
This is really the only thing we had regretted in choosing Casa Tikiri. We wanted a view of the rice fields. But then we fell in love with it, which was close to the sea but far from the rice fields.
It has been two years since we started building Casa Tikiri. Two years in which we said to ourselves: we will never build anything in Sri Lanka again-it was too hard! Two years, however, in which we also discovered rice fields near the sea -- 500 meters from Casa Tikiri, just up the same street.
May 2024. A new adventure begins. Casa Tikiri - PADDY LODGE is already under construction.
Our mission is to offer our guests experiences to remember. Not just a 'hotel,' but a focal point for getting to know Sri Lanka, living slowly and learning to enjoy the little things and moments of 'dolce far niente'.