Olen was unveiled on 25 February 2026, a house half-buried in a cliff at Poseidonia, a quiet enclave on Syros. Ateno Architecture Studio of Athens, founded in 2018, drew it and records the building as completed in 2025. Seven suites sit on 10 acres of barely touched land above the Aegean, on a steep slope that falls away to the south. That slope set the plan: the brief asked for a good deal of building on ground where almost nothing had been built.
So most of Olen is underground. Terraces, retaining walls and cuts into the hill do the work walls and roofs usually do, and the architecture sits inside the terrain rather than on top of it. Elias Theodorakis and Yiorgos Fiorentinos, who led the project, held to that even under a brief on the large side for the site. What shows is textured render in earth tones, with the exposed stonework at the lowest level the one departure from it.
A play in three parts
The scheme steps down the hill in three pieces the architects name the Plane, the Line and the Point, joined by a zigzagging path, each more private than the one above it. They call the plot amphitheatrical.
The Plane takes the highest ground. A curved retaining wall sweeps round a terrace with a leaf-shaped pergola and a pool, and the same wall carries the ramps and stairs down the site. Shared living rooms and a bedroom are sunk into the hill behind it, and three further bedrooms sit in cubic volumes that push out towards the sea. Theodorakis and Fiorentinos count those serpentine walls and the pergola as the largest gestures in the project.
Below it, the Line is a long submerged building with two living units that run separately or combine into one, opening onto a shared terrace and a narrow infinity pool. Its façade is set back under a shading overhang, so from above it is little more than a line drawn in the ground.
At the bottom, nearest the sea, is the Point: an independent subterranean guesthouse fronted by a curved stone wall and a small circular pool. It is built from materials taken from the site, and only its round terrace is visible from anywhere else.
Kourasani is the mortar the practice builds in, ceramic powder worked much as plaster is, and in use since antiquity. Theodorakis and Fiorentinos favour it for its coarse finish, the strength that comes with that, and terracotta colouring that ages with little upkeep. Inside Olen the palette is a warm off-white, chosen to keep rooms that sit under a hillside light and airy, and pale stone floors run from the terraces through to the bedrooms. Yiorgis Yerolymbos photographed the finished building.
The seven suites
Each suite holds two guests and takes its name from a song by Demis Roussos. We Shall Dance and Midnight Hour have the largest interiors, 55 square metres each, with 30 square metres outside. Someday Somewhere has the only private pool of the seven, 45 square metres inside and 35 outside. Forever & Ever has the smallest interior at 28 square metres and opens onto 130 square metres of shared outdoor space. Ocean Whisper, Summer in Her Eyes and Let It Be Me each run to 35 square metres with 20 outside. Every suite faces the sea.
Where the name comes from
Olen is a figure of early Greek poetry, credited in antiquity with inventing the hexameter and with founding the temple of Apollo at Delphi. One tradition has him carrying the cult of Apollo to Delos, the island held to be the god’s birthplace.
A day at the house
A private chef cooks in the suite, on a menu drawn from Cycladic cooking and produce grown on the island. Massage is given in the suite as well, and there are personal training and yoga sessions indoors or out. A local guide walks one of the island trails at the pace of whoever is walking it. A tasting day works through a gourmet grocer, a loukoumi workshop for the island’s best-known sweet, a family house in the village of Episkopio for homemade liqueurs and desserts, and a winery among thyme and sage for the rosés and whites Syros makes.
Getting there is the other half of the case for Syros. Ermoupoli, the island’s main town and port, is 18 minutes by road. Syros National Airport is under 15 minutes away, and a nearby helipad can be arranged for private transfers.
Who is this for
Olen suits two people who want a Cycladic house with nobody above or below them. It suits a family or a group of friends who can take all seven suites between them, 14 guests in all. The property has direct sea access, and boats go out for the day: in under an hour you can be ashore on Mykonos, Paros, Tinos or Sifnos. Back at the house the pace is slow, and at the lowest level of the site the waves are most of what you hear.
