Classic Thai. Chami Jotisalikorn

rooms provide enough air circulation for a comfortable night's sleep. The open ground floor is used as a lobby, dining and sitting area. The centuries old Thai custom of cultivating potted plants in the home is in ample evidence throughout.

      The Thai House Hotel is the home of the Fargrajang family, who run the property as a farm-stay guesthouse. It was the dream of the owners, who formerly ran a travel agency specializing in inbound tours catering to Europeans, to build a traditional Thai house where visitors could experience the idyllic lifestyle of rural Thailand. "Thai houses have become rare," says owner Khun Prasan Fargrajang, who grew up in her father's traditional Thai house, which is still located on the property behind the guesthouse, overlooking the canal. "Most of them are old and damaged and it's hard to find the artisans who are able to renovate and maintain the exact traditional style. The few complete ones that still exist either belong to the rich elite or have become museums. Neither type offer a place to stay, and few people these days have the opportunity to experience Thai houses as homes any more."

      Platform landings situated at different levels along the entrance stairways originated purely from the need to accommodate high and low floods during the monsoon. The platforms are usually roofed to form a small pavilion, and were used as a gathering place. They are usually found in the more well-to-do houses, while poorer homes have only a simple flight of stairs.

      Taking its cue from the cluster house architecture of the extended family, the hotel treats its guests like members of a rural household. Guests can take part in Thai cuisine cooking courses using herbs and vegetables plucked straight from the kitchen garden, or travel on longtail boats through the canal network behind the house to join in the typical activities of a rural community, such as local temple fairs and ordination ceremonies. The boat ride through the canals extends all the way to Bangkok's Grand Palace pier on the Chao Phraya River.

      Traditionally, all household activities such as sleeping, eating and resting took place on the floor, which was kept meticulously clean, and explains the Thai custom of removing one's shoes when entering a Thai house.

      Thai homes contained very little furniture. In most households, the occupants used mostly reed mats and pillows; here a bedroom is created with the addition of a mattress and dressing table.

      The unusually tall height of these house pillars allows the lower sitting area to enjoy more light and provides greater space for breezes to circulate.

      The Jim Thompson House

      Known to locals simply as 'The House on the Klong', the house of American architect and businessman Jim Thompson epitomizes the heights of elegance that can be attained through a successful marriage of beautiful objects and exquisite taste. Originally stationed in Thailand with the US Office of Strategic Services during World War II, Thompson became a legend for single-handedly reviving the then-dying craft of Thai silk weaving, bringing the product to international fame, and then mysteriously disappearing in the Malaysian jungle in 1967. A great admirer of all things Thai, Thompson built his house in the late 1950s, at a time when it was completely novel for either Thais or westerners to live in a traditional Thai house. He acquired six old houses from various parts of the country and had them reassembled in 1959 in their current location, choosing a site on the klong, or canal, opposite the Bangkrua weaving community that produced his silk.