The King George has a corner of Syntagma Square in central Athens, with 102 rooms and suites behind its front. The owner sets that out as 59 rooms and 43 suites, with views over the city and the Parthenon.
The Penthouse Suite is on the ninth floor, reached by a private lift, and its private outdoor pool looks across to the Acropolis. The same floor has a 350 square metre room that can be taken for a gathering under the open sky.
A Luxury Collection house on the square
Its registered address is 3 Vasileos Georgiou A’, Syntagma Square, Athens 105 64. The owner dates the house to 1930 in the centre of Athens, and the brand publishes the same year, while the building record puts the inauguration in 1936. The split inside those 102 keys has moved too: at the time of the 2017 sale it was given as 63 rooms and 39 suites, and the owner now publishes 59 and 43. Lampsa Hellenic Hotels also has the Hotel Grande Bretagne beside it, so one company holds both of these corners of the square.
Two buildings on the same ground
The Stephanos Skouloudis Mansion was built on the square in 1837 to the design of the French architect V. E. Poitrineau, and the architect Anastasios Metaxas renovated it after Skouloudis died in 1928. For a time the building was an annex to the palace that occupied what is now the parliament building, and later the prime minister lived in it.
In the early 1930s the entrepreneur Konstantinos Kalkanis bought the mansion, pulled it down and built the King George Palace Hotel in its place. Nikolaos Zouboulidis was the architect, Dimitrios Kalkanis the civil engineer, and the hotel was inaugurated in 1936. George II was among the earliest guests to come through its door.
The building changed shape several times after that. The architect Ioannis Antoniadis directed the last of those alterations from 1955, which raised the hotel by three floors and settled its form in 1958.
Closed, leased, bought back
The hotel shut in 1988 over its owner company’s debts, and the Bank of Crete took it in 1995. Eurobank bought it next and leased it to a hotel chain; the house was renovated and ran from 2004 until 2012.
Lampsa Hellenic Hotels signed a long-term lease with Eurobank Ergasias in 2012, 20 years at an annual rent of 700,000 euro, and put the hotel under Starwood management in the Luxury Collection. Three months of work followed, directed by Alexandros C. Samaras & Associates S.A. at a cost of more than 2.5 million euro, and the house opened its doors in June 2013 as a five-star hotel. Alexandros Samaras said the work was carried out “with particular sensitivity and respect for its tradition”, and that the architectural interventions aimed at reviving the hotel’s glory and prestige while showing its contemporary personality.
The owner is Lampsa Hellenic Hotels, outright since November 2017: Eurobank accepted the company’s pre-emption right that month and the hotel was sold for 43 million euro.
Where dinner is
Dinner is at Tudor Hall, one MICHELIN star, seventh floor. Nikos Livadias is the chef there, and his menu is Greek cooking in a modern register, a concise à la carte list with a tasting menu beside it. Evangelos Psofidis is the head sommelier. The room is neo-classical and looks at the Acropolis. It has a terrace, and it works as a lounge as well, with cocktails of its own.
Who is this for
The King George suits a traveller who wants the middle of Athens at the door and a small house to come back to at the end of the day. The owner calls it a boutique hotel and points to the natural wooden floors in its rooms. The address is on Syntagma Square itself, and the hotel takes guests in every month of the year. Piano music plays at dinner upstairs, and the restaurant asks to be booked ahead.
