Gundari stands on 80 acres of cliff land on the south-eastern coast of Folegandros, beside the small village of Petousis, the island’s first agricultural settlement. It is 3 km from Chora, 5 km from the port and 2 km from the heliport, and it is the first luxury hotel the island has had. It opened in May 2024 with 27 suites and villas, 25 suites and two villas, drawn by Block722 in Athens.
Folegandros has no airport. Arrival is by sea, on the daily ferries from Athens, Santorini, Milos and the other Cycladic ports, or by private helicopter transfer from Athens and the nearby Aegean islands. The island had no real electricity until 1974 and joined the Greek mainland grid in 2018. The land around the resort is classified as protected forest.
The ground, and the two men who bought it
Ricardo Larriera, Uruguayan-born and a Sydney native, came to the project from advertising, with no background in hospitality. He acquired the clifftop in 2019 after visiting the island with his business partner Terry Seremetis, whose ancestors lived on Folegandros and who co-owns the resort. Five years passed between the first spades in the ground and the day it opened.
Fol Resort owns and developed Gundari, and Hotel Brain operates it. GR-eco Islands, the Greek state’s sustainable-development scheme for the islands, counts Folegandros among its 40, and Gundari was built inside that scheme by its Australian owners.
What Block722 drew
Block722 held the masterplan, the architecture, the creative direction, the interiors and the styling, under four design leaders, among them Sotiris Tsergas and Katja Margaritoglou. The build area runs to 2,000 square metres, completed in 2024.
Stone carries the long linear walls, which follow the line of the ground, and light timber structures work as connectors between them. The suites and villas are made from natural materials, with quiet furniture chosen to sit against the earth beneath them, and they are clad in red-rust limestone excavated on the site itself.
All 27 are bio-climatically designed and face south, so that they stand out of the summer Cycladic winds. In the lower zone of the complex the spa and the executive suites are concealed entirely within the earth, and the building gives way to the contours of the land. The bar and restaurant sit on the north-west side, and that is where guests gather. Lighting is by L+DG Lighting Architects, Naomi Gregory advised on the spa, and the sculpture is by Elina Ioannou.
The suites and the villas
A standard or junior suite has 35 m² of internal living and 25 m² outside, for two guests, with a private pool and a sea view. The cave suites are built subterranean on the cliff edge: the executive keeps the same 35 m² and 25 m², the deluxe has 54 m² inside and 60 m² out for three guests, and the superior 70 m² inside and 60 m² out. The three-bedroom villa has 300 m² of internal living and 300 m² of outdoor living for six guests, with a large pool and a jacuzzi; the four-bedroom has 280 m² and 200 m² for eight. There is a private solar-heated pool to every suite and villa, and the cave suites hold the larger and more private ones.
What the resort does with the land
Before construction started, more than 600 seedlings were collected and nurtured, then returned to regenerate the land with indigenous plants. Gundari carries carbon monitoring and certification through EarthCheck, and heats its water and its pools on solar. Waste water is treated biologically and recycled for irrigation. A bird monitoring and conservation programme has run from 2024 onward, in ground known as a resting place for birds migrating between Europe and Africa.
Orizon
Many of the restaurant’s ingredients come from artisan farms on the island. The menu is a contemporary Greek one built on what the waters around Folegandros and the Cycladic season give, with a list of local and international wines beside it. The bar is a vinyl-only hi-fi listening space, modelled on the Japanese jazz kissaten of an earlier era.
Who is this for
Gundari suits a traveller content to spend the day on their own terrace and in their own pool, with an open-air shower off it and a mixologist at the swim-up bar, then the evening in Chora, where the squares fill after dark with people playing cards and backgammon over a glass of wine. The resort will send its own boat across from Santorini, Milos, Paros or Sifnos; Santorini is 50 minutes away by fast ferry.
