The Andronis house that stepped back from the cliff

Andronis Arcadia is the largest house the Andronis group holds on Santorini, and the newest of them. It opened in 2019 on the fringe of Oia and was remodelled in 2023. It holds 114 suites and villas, each with a private pool, set to face the Aegean and the sunset, and every room looks at the water.

The group’s two older houses in Oia are cut into the caldera cliff and take no young children. Arcadia was built back from the rim on open ground, and the house runs it as a lifestyle property: four meeting rooms, two large pools, a kids club, sunset music events through the season at Pacman and an international steak room. A family can stay here, and a group of friends can take a villa whole.

The ground

The address is Oia, Santorini, five minutes’ walk from the caldera path, which puts the village shops and the evening crowd within reach and leaves the house out of them. The airport is 16 kilometres off, about 20 minutes, and the port of Thira 20 kilometres, about 30 minutes. Access across the property is step free, which is rare in a village reached mostly by stairs, and parking is on site. The house also runs mixology classes in a laboratory it keeps for them.

The rooms

The bulk of the inventory is the 57 Natura Suites, 50 square metres for two with a sea view and an infinity pool, a king bed, a living area opening onto a private veranda and an indoor hot tub. Beside them stand 32 Sunset Suites of 42 square metres, 13 Two Bedroom Suites of 110 square metres over two floors, four Oasis Suites of 100 square metres with a 28 square metre pool and a 60 square metre courtyard each, three Family Suites of 72 square metres and one Executive Suite.

The villas run to two Three Bedroom Villas of 200 square metres for six, one Four Bedroom Villa of 220 square metres for eight, and the Eden Villa, three storeys and 600 square metres for up to 12 guests. The house calls that one the biggest villa in Oia: six bedrooms in a secluded corner of the grounds, with a fitness room, a spa room, a kitchen and a barbecue of its own.

Beefbar and Pacman

Beefbar Santorini was the island’s first Beefbar, a format Riccardo Giraudi began in Monte Carlo, and it comes back to Arcadia for each season. George Kyrtsallidis cooks there, building small plates from the street food of several countries around the cuts. Pacman Sunset Restaurant is the open-air room facing the sunset, modern Greek and Mediterranean with Japanese dishes and sushi, served at breakfast, lunch and dinner with live music. Danny Litovski’s kitchen there runs to crayfish tartare, fish with wild fennel sauce and roast lamb shoulder. The Grande Pool covers 1,000 square metres, and a second infinity pool sits on the property. Room service runs 24 hours, a villa can have a barbecue laid on, and the chefs give a hands-on class in Greek home cooking.

Evexia Spa

Evexia Spa works with ESPA and holds five treatment rooms, a gym, a sauna, a steam room, changing rooms with lockers, a yoga room and an outdoor private pool. Its Kneipp path is two pools in the shape of an L, one cold and one hot, each 3.5 feet deep, their floors laid with stones of different shapes that work the reflex points of the foot. The walk through them is guided, and it comes between cryotherapy wraps with clay masks for the legs and a foot massage at the end.

Families

The kids club is run as ARCADemy with Shift Education and holds a Lego robotics lab. There is no age limit for children, Pacman keeps a children’s menu, two-bedroom accommodation takes up to five people, and babysitting can be arranged. Dogs are welcome with an international health certificate showing the microchip number and the vaccinations given.

Who is this for

Families, groups large enough to take a villa whole, and couples who want open ground under them in Oia. The register is a resort one: wide terraces at the edge of the village, music by the water as the light goes, a steak room, a spa floor and a children’s programme all running at once. Rooms are placed for the sunset, so the evening comes to your own veranda. A whole day can pass inside the gates without feeling closed in.