Canaves Oia Suites stands at the highest point of Oia, on the lip of the Santorini caldera. The house puts its own count at 46 suites and villas on that ledge. What it competes on is the position: rooms that run back into the rock, the village at the door, and a lift.
The entrance is behind the square of the Church of St George, where Oia’s marble pedestrian street begins. The blue-domed churches, the pebble alleys and the Venetian castle are all a short walk along it. Santorini airport is a 25-minute drive. The house keeps a private helipad of its own, five minutes’ drive from the village, and the concierge arranges airport and port transfers. Parking is private, with charging points for electric vehicles.
The lift
Santorini is a stair-climbing island and Oia is the steepest part of it. The house says it is the only property in the village with an elevator, reaching almost all of its room levels along with the main facilities. Its stops are the three main levels of the site, the pool and the restaurant among them. The house will also tell a guest, before they arrive, how many stairs stand between reception and their suite.
The wine caves it came from
Yiannis and Anna Chaidemenos cut two 17th-century wine storage caves into hotel rooms in the mid-1980s, when Oia was still a fishing village with almost no hotels. Canaves Oia Suites opened in 1993 as the larger and more private sibling, and became the flagship of a collection that now runs to four hotels in Santorini. It stays with the Chaidemenos family, second generation since 2010, when Markos and Alexandros Chaidemenos took over from their parents.
The suites
Categories are divided by size and no layout repeats. Most of the suites run long, back into the cliff, and each suite and villa has its own plunge or infinity pool facing the caldera. The largest is the Royal Pool Suite, 70 sq m indoors, 65 sq m outdoors, sleeping three behind an infinity edge. Interiors are white and curved, with a face of rock, stone or marble left showing here and there. Every suite has a sea view, and bathrooms are walk-in showers with the house’s own toiletries. The age condition is 13 in the suites, none in the villas, and the house puts it down to the cliffside site.
The cave spa
Three treatment areas in a 17th-century wine cave make up the spa, one of them outdoors, carved into the rock the way the first rooms were. A nail salon sits beside them, and a rasul room for mud and clay rituals. The gym was rebuilt in 2025. Treatments draw on the Valmont, Cinq Mondes and Kos Paris lines, and the spa also arranges yoga, Pilates and a personal trainer. The main pool sits two levels below reception, with a smaller one near it holding semi-submerged chairs.
Petra, and the water
Breakfast is à la carte by the pool, and in the evening the same terrace becomes Petra, chef Tasos Stefatos cooking a degustation menu that can be taken with a wine pairing. The Panorama Balcony Experience seats two above the caldera, and the kitchen will also serve dinner in the suite. The house sails its own catamaran and yacht out of Ammoudi, the port below the village.
Who is this for
Couples and small groups of friends who want Oia at the door and quiet when they come back from it. The reception lounge lays out art books on low marble tables, and the mood through the buildings is pale and neutral, with sand-coloured canopies over the balconies and the occasional splash of green. The house blends its own green tea and thyme scent, which it sells as a candle. Many of the staff have been here for years, and a good number of guests return to them.
