Elounda Peninsula, the all-suite house cut out of its neighbour

Elounda Peninsula All Suite Hotel stands on the coast of Elounda, in north-east Crete, with a sand beach in front of it, and it holds 58 suites, villas and residences. It opened in 2002 out of the hotel next door: a wing of seafront bungalows and suites inside Porto Elounda, cut loose and run as a house in its own right.

Elounda Peninsula is one of three adjoining hotels that make up Elounda Collection Hotels & Resorts on one stretch of the Gulf of Mirabello, and a guest uses all three. The suites, the villas and the beach in front of them are this house’s own. The Six Senses spa is next door, the golf and the courts are shared, and boats run between the venues.

What a suite is

Every unit is a suite, a villa or a residence, so there is no standard room. The seawater pool comes with the larger tiers. The Peninsula Collection Suites run from 80 to 160 square metres of indoor space, each with its own marble bathroom and a furnished terrace with a seawater pool, sleeping three to seven adults and a child. A one-bedroom suite in that tier is laid out over two storeys: the bedroom and its bathroom upstairs, and a ground-floor living room that opens straight onto the pool.

The Presidential Waterfront Villas run from about 80 to 120 square metres on the waterfront, with a private furnished terrace or garden and a heatable seawater swimming pool, a bathroom with a bathtub, and dining indoors and out. Each has direct access to a jetty or to the hotel’s private sandy beach, and they sleep three to five.

The two Junior Suite tiers, Junior Suites Sea View and Beachfront Junior Suites, are about 48 square metres, with a split-level sitting area and a private balcony with loungers; the Beachfront tier has direct access to the sand. The Peninsula Grand Villas run from about 120 to 150 square metres and sleep five to seven adults and a child.

The residences the owners keep

The Diamond Residences are a seafront wing of privately owned houses, the last project of the founders, and the resort takes care of their upkeep for the owners. There are seven: Koufonisi at 85 square metres, Gramvousa at 200, Chrysi at 295, Gavdos at 319, Loutro at 330, Dionisades at 335 and Tilos, six bedrooms over 425 square metres, the largest the house has. Across the range they sleep from two to 14 people.

Each residence has a private garden and an outdoor pool, and a few have an indoor pool as well. Koufonisi, the smallest, is a beachfront retreat for two and the one residence with no pool. The complex runs year round, with access to a private sandy beach.

What the neighbours hold

The Six Senses Spa is in the main building of Porto Elounda next door, shared across the Collection, with 21 treatment rooms and three works by the Greek artist Kostas Varotsos. Its programmes run to weight management, detox and sleep, with yoga and Pilates packages beside them.

The golf is a private nine-hole par-three course, with an academy run by PGA professionals. The courts have gone to Lux Tennis, which runs them as a Racquet Club and has added padel and pickleball. Across the three hotels there are six public pools, 120 private ones and four private sandy beaches. All 58 units at Elounda Peninsula were upgraded through 2025, and a wellness centre was added for the 2026 season with Technogym equipment, Pilates reformer machines, a yoga studio and an outdoor gym.

The table

Three restaurants are the house’s own. Il Borro Tuscan Bistro, the Italian kitchen, is on the waterfront. Sumosan, a Japanese kitchen, made its Greek debut here. Calypso serves à la carte breakfast over the bay, beside a turquoise pool that appears to overflow into the sea. The Collection’s other kitchens, at Porto Elounda and Elounda Mare, are open to a guest here and reached by the sea transfers.

The family

Spyros Kokotos, an architect, and Eliana Kokotos met in Crete in the late 1960s and bought land in Elounda. He founded Elounda SA and built all three hotels, and he died in September 2025 at the age of 91. A son, Ilias S. Kokotos, runs business development across the Collection. The family keeps an estate inland at Dafnes, 18 kilometres south of Heraklion, with its own winery, where the old stable and their great-grandfather’s doctor’s office are now a folklore museum named for Spyros and Eliana Kokotos.

Who is this for

The house suits a traveller who wants a suite rather than a room, with a terrace or garden and a seawater pool of their own a few steps above the sand. Families have the Children’s Ark playground, the water sports complex and the Valencia soccer school camp. A quieter stay has the house’s own spa, with pool, sauna and hammam, the wine cellar, the cinema theatre and the Serenes’ Bar at the water’s edge. The Peninsula Lounge and the Thea bar are the other rooms for an evening.