From Bali to Muhu: The Story Behind Dharma Resort

Some places are planned in detail long before they exist.
Others begin as a feeling.

Dharma Resort began that way.

Before there were houses, before there was a name, before there was even a clear map of how it would all come together, there was simply a quiet wish: to create a place close to nature. A place of calm, beauty and peace.

That feeling first took shape in Bali at the end of 2019. At the time, life was still moving fast. Travel was constant, the world felt open, and everything seemed to be rushing forward. But underneath that movement, there was already a longing for something different — a slower, more intentional way of living, more connected to nature and to what truly matters.

Then the pandemic came, and the world stopped.

Suddenly, everything became still. Borders closed. Plans paused. Daily life changed. And in that strange global silence, the feeling behind Dharma became even clearer. What had once been a quiet idea now felt deeply necessary: to create a place where people could slow down, breathe, and return to themselves.

A place we felt before we built

Later, that feeling found its place on Muhu Island.

When we first came to Rässa in the spring of 2020, the land felt tender and quietly alive. There were soft blooms, gentle light, and the first warmth of the season. Nothing needed to announce itself. The place spoke in a quieter language — through space, atmosphere, and the sense that time moved differently there.

It did not feel like discovering something entirely new.
It felt more like recognizing something we had already been searching for.

What began as a private dream slowly grew into something we wanted to share.

From spring 2020 through autumn 2022, the vision was allowed to develop slowly. Not rushed. Not forced. Just observed, shaped, questioned, and refined over time. The more deeply we listened to the island, the clearer it became that this should not only be a home for ourselves, but a place where others could also come to rest, reflect, and reconnect.

In summer 2025, Dharma Resort finally opened its doors on Muhu Island.

More than a place to stay

From the beginning, Dharma Resort was never meant to be only accommodation.

We created it as a sanctuary for body, mind and spirit — a place where thoughtful homes, nourishing food, and spaces for yoga, art and cooking come together to support something more subtle: the feeling of coming back to oneself.

We offer privacy.
We offer calm.
We offer beauty without noise.
We offer space to slow down and simply be.

Everything has been shaped with that intention.

Two different paths, one shared vision

Behind Dharma Resort are two very different people, and perhaps that is part of why it feels the way it does.

Raymond comes from hospitality, and from a more sensory way of reading the world. Raised in Indonesia, he spent more than fifteen years in hospitality there before life unexpectedly carried him to Estonia in early 2020, just before Europe closed its borders because of pandemic. What could have been only a pause became a beginning. In that stillness, a new relationship with Estonia started to form — through language, through people, through work, and eventually through the life of Muhu Island itself.

Sven naturally looks toward the wider shape of things — the future of the place, the direction it can grow into, the larger vision holding it all together. He brings strategic thinking, long-range perspective, and the kind of ideas that challenge everything to become more coherent, more alive, and more complete.

There is something meaningful in that contrast.

One sees structure, direction, possibility.
The other feels atmosphere, rhythm, and the emotional truth of an experience.

At Dharma Resort, those two ways of seeing meet each other all the time.

One keeps asking where the vision can go.
The other keeps asking how it should feel when someone arrives.

That balance lives quietly inside everything we create.

Why Muhu

Not every place could hold this vision.

Muhu could.

There are places that naturally ask you to do more, and places that gently ask you to soften. Muhu belongs to the second kind. The forests, the sea, the birds, the changing light, the silence between things — all of it creates a rhythm that feels increasingly rare.

The island does not demand reinvention.
It invites return.

Return to slowness.
Return to clarity.
Return to a more rooted way of being.

For Raymond especially, Muhu also became a teacher.

After years in Bali, where warmth and service are woven naturally into daily life, Muhu revealed another form of hospitality: one that is less about doing more and more about holding space. Space for silence. Space for privacy. Space for nature to lead. Space for guests to arrive at their own pace.

In that way, the island helped shape not only the resort, but also our understanding of what true hospitality can be.

Why Dharma

The name itself says a great deal.

Dharma is not an easy word to translate directly, but at its heart it speaks to harmony — with life, with the world around us, and with ourselves. It points toward intention, integrity, and alignment.

That meaning mattered from the beginning, because Dharma Resort was never imagined as something loud or performative. We did not want to create a place that competes for attention. We wanted to create a place that feels grounded, clear, and honest — where beauty does not need to shout because it is already present in the atmosphere.

Dharma carries the warmth of the East and the quiet grace of the North. It carries the memory of Bali and the stillness of Muhu. It carries vision, structure, atmosphere, and care.

What we create

Luxury here is not loud.

It is not excess for the sake of display.
It is not about more and more.

For us, luxury is something more discreet — a sense of ease, clarity and thoughtful care. It is the feeling that every detail has been considered, but nothing is trying too hard to impress. It is the kind of experience that does not announce itself, yet stays with you long after you leave.

This is what we create at Dharma Resort.

We create spaces that feel calm.
We create moments that feel unhurried.
We create an atmosphere where nature remains the main voice.
We create the conditions for rest, reflection, and reconnection.

Everything grows from one question that we return to again and again:

What would it feel like for someone to truly rest here?

The spaces.
The food.
The mood.
The pace.
The details that are seen, and the details that are barely noticed.

Everything begins there.

Still becoming

Over time, Dharma has become more than the idea we first imagined.

It has become a place that keeps teaching us too — how to simplify, how to listen more closely, how to build with greater honesty, and how to let nature remain at the center. As the seasons continue to shape this island, they continue to shape us as well.

What matters more and more is not perfection, but becoming more rooted, more intentional, and more true to what Dharma was always meant to be.

So this is the story behind Dharma Resort.

Not only how it was built, but why.

A quiet idea born in Bali.
A world brought to stillness by the pandemic.
A piece of land on Muhu that felt like home.
Two different people bringing two different strengths.
And a shared wish to create a place where others can slow down, breathe, and simply be.

If you feel drawn to stillness, beauty and a more thoughtful rhythm of life, Dharma Resort is here — quietly waiting on Muhu Island.

Five Winter Rituals for Stillness on Muhu Island

Winter on Muhu arrives like a deep exhale.
The light turns soft. The island becomes quiet. And suddenly, life feels ready to simplify.

At Dharma, we meet winter with rituals—small practices that warm the body and clear the mind. Nothing complicated. Nothing forced. Just gentle structure that helps you return to yourself.

Here are five winter rituals we keep close.