Elounda Mare stands at Elounda, in eastern Crete, where olive groves and mature gardens run down a slope to Mirabello Bay and finish at a curve of sand. Nothing on the site is stacked. The accommodation sits among the planting in buildings of one and two storeys, so the whole house covers the ground of a hamlet and rises no higher than one.
It opened in 1982, the first hotel the family of Spyros and Eliana Kokotos owned outright. He is an architect who has specialised in hotels since his student years at the National Technical University of Athens; she grew up in the hotels her father, Elias Sotirchos, managed and owned. Relais & Châteaux admitted it in 1987, the first Greek house on the association’s list.
The pools came first
Every bungalow was given a pool of its own. The owning group says no hotel in the Mediterranean had done that before, and the market copied it afterwards. There are 92 rooms, suites and villas, most of them suites. The rooms and the one- and two-bedroom suites in the main building run from 30 to 80 m² indoors and face the sea over deep terraces. The bungalows stand apart behind high stone walls, on one or two floors, each with a private pool sized for swimming rather than for cooling off. The gardens below them end at a large saltwater infinity pool above the beach, which the house keeps heated through the cold months, and a stone jetty runs out beside it with a ladder into the sea.
The ladder
There are three grades of pool bungalow. The Deluxe gives about 30 to 45 m² of living space at the entry grade, with antiques worked into the individual design of each bungalow, so no two of them read the same. The Superior runs 35 to 55 m², and the two-bedroom Superior 80 to 90 m², with a marble bathroom en suite to each bedroom. The Minoan Royalty Villas hold about 90 to 150 m² indoors, some over two floors, with a large living room and the sea in view from the bedrooms, the balconies and a furnished private garden. At the top is the Minoan Palace, a four-bedroom house of about 300 m² on the beach that sleeps nine. Its master bedroom is 76 m², the three other bedrooms are en suite, and it has a lift, a chef’s pantry, a large seawater pool, a veranda laid for dinner and a door straight onto the sand.
The tables
The Old Mill is the fine-dining room, set around an ancient millstone in waterside gardens, with terraced planting and olive groves around it and a lawn below, and the house says its regulars have been coming back for 30 years. The chef is Stavros Kokkinakis, who builds the menu on Cretan ingredients; the kitchen calls the result Cretan fusion and holds a Toque d’Or. The Yacht Club sits on the edge above the beach and serves dinner through the summer, a Greek menu of local seafood and produce cooked in traditional ways. Breakfast is at the Deck, a room of sea views open from 7am to 10.30am all season, where a buffet and an à la carte menu are both served.
The bar and the cellar
Karavia is where the evening goes, an aperitif bar over the water with lounges furnished in folk art, antiques and ancient artefacts. The cellar is Kellari, which holds Greek wines from every region alongside Old World and New World vintages and seats up to eight for a private dinner. The Thea lounge bar opens from 5pm to 1am and looks straight down the bay.
What stands next door
Wellness is the Six Senses Spa at neighbouring Porto Elounda, which opened in 2006, and a guest at Elounda Mare uses it along with the nine-hole golf course and the children’s club. Elounda Mare is one of three houses in Elounda under the same ownership, with Porto Elounda and Elounda Peninsula beside it. Agios Nikolaos, the capital of eastern Crete, is 5.5 miles away, and the boats for Spinalonga leave 6 miles off, from the fishing village of Plaka.
Who is this for
Elounda Mare suits a family taking a villa for a fortnight, and a couple who want a gate that shuts behind them and a terrace nobody crosses. Olives and palms grow between the buildings, and the water is a short walk down through the gardens from anywhere on the slope. Bathrooms have walk-in showers and Apivita toiletries made in Greece; a villa adds a small kitchen, a garden of its own and a private gym. Heraklion airport and the ruins of Knossos are 45 miles west.
