Grace Hotel stands at Imerovigli, Santorini, on the northwest hillside of the island, about 2 kilometres from Fira, 8 from the airport and 10 from Athinios port. It faces Skaros Rock, the ruin of a medieval citadel that sits at eye level with the site, and every level of the hotel looks over it to the caldera. Auberge Resorts Collection runs the house, one of four it has open in Europe.
The building was drawn for Grace Hotels Group by Divercity Architects with Mplusm, who date the work in two stages, the hotel 2010, the villa 2012. Instead of the rounded walls and domed roofs usual on the island, they worked in sharp lines, so the rooms read as flat terraces layered down the hillside in the way the caldera rock below them is layered. The angled boundaries pick up the broken silhouette of Skaros.
The lattice
Rooms and suites are cut into the cliff face in the manner of yposkafa, the island’s traditional dug dwellings. A Santorini room is usually left open-ended to face the view, which exposes a guest to the weather and to the pedestrian path outside. Here a lattice of volcanic rocks sits in the windows instead. It filters the sunlight, ventilates the room and screens the plunge pools, and its gaps give back the horizon in pieces. The interiors keep to two colours, the black of the volcanic rock and Cycladic white.
The rooms
The house counted 20 rooms when it reopened in April 2022. Two Infinity Suites were added for the 2024 season, and by the 2025 season it stood at 23 rooms and suites, the Villa among them. Accommodation runs 50 to 400 square metres. Each one puts indoor and outdoor space together, most have a heated plunge pool over the caldera, and some of the suites have a hammam bath. The Villa has two bedrooms and 400 square metres, with a private pool and spa of its own.
The Infinity Suites sit next to the hotel rather than inside it, for privacy, and each has its own infinity pool. They give 105 square metres in all, 50 inside and 55 out, newly built and pared back in grey with American walnut. The bathroom is marble, and the rainfall shower doubles as a steam room. Guests there are lent LED masks and body patches from The Light Salon.
The kitchen and the bar
The restaurant is Varoulko Santorini, by Lefteris Lazarou, the second house of that name. Lazarou opened the first Varoulko in 1987 and built it on seafood, and he cooks at Varoulko Seaside on the Mikrolimano waterfront in Athens, on the catch of the day. His protégé Komninos Mouflouzelis was installed as head chef at Imerovigli when the hotel reopened in April 2022, and the menu runs à la carte or as one of three tasting menus.
The bar is 363 Bar, at 363 metres above the sea, and the name is the height. Thanos Prunarus, who founded the Athens bar Baba Au Rum, wrote the list, and the weight of it falls on rum.
Water and treatment
The heated infinity pool has pool-bar service, and the hotel calls it the largest in Imerovigli. There is no treatment-room spa in the usual sense. Treatments are given in the guest’s own room, facing the caldera, with APIVITA products built on Greek plant extracts, beehive honey and essential oils. The spa space the hotel does keep is small and shared with the yoga and Pilates studios, and its treatment menu is a full one. The fitness studio is a room of its own.
The management
The post of general manager has changed with the seasons. George Avgoustis was in the post when the house reopened in April 2022. George Georgousis arrived for 2024 from Andronis Arcadia in Santorini, where he had been general manager since 2022, and Jerry Diamantatos was appointed for the 2025 season.
Who is this for
Grace suits a couple who want the quiet end of the cliff. Imerovigli sits between the island’s two busy poles, a 30-minute walk from Fira and a 15-minute drive from Oia, so the rest of the island stays within reach of an afternoon. The hotel says it is especially well suited to couples, with caldera sunsets and celebrations it plans to order. Late spring to early autumn is the warm stretch, and the shoulder seasons are the quieter Santorini.
