Inland of Porto Heli, in the valleys that run down to the bay of a working fishing village, an estate of olive groves is becoming a golf course with a country club and 90 building plots around it. Kilada Country Club, Golf and Residences takes its name from the village, and the village takes its name from the ground: kilada is Greek for valley. This is the Porto Heli area of the Peloponnese, which the club calls the crowning glory of the Greek Riviera. The course at the centre of it is a Jack Nicklaus Signature design, a championship layout of 18 holes, par 72, with a lake bordering the eighth and ninth holes. Nicklaus Design calls it the only 18-hole par-72 championship course of its kind in the eastern Mediterranean, and the club holds the PGA National Greece title, a designation restricted to one recognised resort per country.
It is also not finished. Work on the course began in 2020, as part of a wider development then led by Dolphin Capital Investors, and the greens were specified as Platinum TE paspalum with Pure Dynasty seeded on every other playing surface. In January 2023 the first holes had been grassed, and the work on the ground was in the hands of Dirk Bouts, a senior design associate at Nicklaus Design. Nicklaus Design carries the layout as Kilada Hills and gives its status as under development, with no date against it. The developer’s own account of the project, last revised in August 2026, says the same. The club’s pages still carry a summer 2023 opening and Nicklaus Design’s record an early 2023 one. Both dates have passed, and nothing published since sets another.
The land and the lots
The extent of the estate is one of the few figures the project states two ways. The club’s own pages give some 235 hectares. Its developer gives more than 200 hectares of rolling land, which is also the figure the club uses when it describes the Country and Beach Clubs together. The first phase releases 90 lots, each chosen for the privacy of the house that will stand on it and for the views from the villa and its grounds, ranging in size from just below 1,000 square metres to more than 2,000 square metres. Those views take in olive grove, golf course and valley, then the sea, the hills and the turquoise water of the bay with its fishing boats.
The standing at the club follows the land, and first buyers hold it for life. Kilada Founder is restricted to owners of lots from 1,800 square metres to nearly 2,300 square metres, plots sized for villas of about 550 square metres of primary living area. Platinum attaches to the smaller lots, from 900 square metres to nearly 1,300 square metres, sized for villas of about 250 square metres. Both standings carry access to the club facilities and the golf course, priority tee times, priority booking across the club, the VIP club lounge, courtesy range balls and the use of an owner’s own club-approved cart. Founders also have a clubhouse plaque and a private named locker. A buyer reserves a lot, acquires it freehold, then builds, either with one of the project’s signature architects or with their own.
The clubhouse, the beach and the hotel
The Country Club building was drawn by one of Greece’s leading architects, whom the club’s pages do not name. It is built from natural materials, with floor to ceiling windows, wrap-around terraces and covered walkways, and it holds the spa, the pool, the lounges, bars and dining rooms, along with clay tennis courts outside. The Beach Club is less than a five-minute drive down the hill: a private beach, a terrace looking out to the islands, seafood from the bay, sailing and water sports with an instructor team, and priority booking at two diving schools. Neither club is open to the public. Beyond them, planning is under way for the Kilada Hilltop Hotel, a boutique hotel set high in the valley for guests and occasional visitors, and for a separate wellness and training centre.
The hands behind it
Kilada is a project of DCI Advisors Ltd, the developer of Amanzoe and Nikki Beach Resort & Spa in the same stretch of coast, working with Ingenium Developments and Arcis. Villa designs have been commissioned from named practices, each in its own signature style. DZA Architects drew a house that lifts its living rooms onto a piano nobile in the Spetses tradition, with the garden view running northwest into the golf course. Omniview, the team behind One Kleomenous in Athens, drew the Spiral Villa, whose plan turns on a central open court shaded by a single olive tree.
Who is this for
Golfers who want a championship layout with a name of the first rank behind it, and buyers who would rather hold freehold land and build to their own brief than take a finished villa. Kilada itself is a boatbuilding village, its yards still making and mending the wooden fishing boats of the region, with a marina for visiting yachts. The port for the car-free islands of Spetses and Hydra is ten minutes away, and Athens airport is 25 minutes by helicopter or a coastal drive of about two hours.
