A tailor’s son built it in 1874, and six rooms now hold its frescoes

Palazzo Santa Maria has six rooms in a neoclassical mansion built in 1874 on the west hillside of Ermoupoli, on Syros, and the Ministry of Culture designates the building a Monument. The reason to go is what the restoration found under later work: frescoes that had been hidden in the rooms and the public areas, one of them a depiction of Hermes.

The house stands at 42 Omirou Street, in the historic centre and within walking distance of the town hall, the central square, the Apollon Theatre and the port. It takes adults only, couples and people travelling alone, and it is open all year. The six rooms run from 18 to 32 square metres, and each one carries the name of a figure with a connection to Syros and its culture, among them Dimitrios Vikelas and the nineteenth-century French actress Sarah Bernhardt.

The tailor’s son who built it

Menelaos Kornilakis, a businessman born on Syros, built the house in 1874. His father Konstantine, a tailor well known in his day, had moved to the island from Crete in 1827. Twenty years before the house went up, in 1854, Kornilakis established a tannery in the industrial district of Syros. Crete came back into the building when it was restored, because the exterior colour scheme and the logo were drawn from the palette of the palace at Knossos, in deference to the builder’s descent.

The mansion belongs to the Ermoupoli of those same decades. The town is the capital of Syros and the administrative centre of the Cyclades, and it grew wealthy through the nineteenth century on shipping and trade. That wealth is still legible in the neoclassical streets around the house. Ernst Ziller drew the town hall between 1871 and 1888, and the Apollon Theatre was built in 1864.

The restoration

Nicolas Roussos, a hotelier whose working life was spent in international luxury hospitality, acquired the property in 2018, and his family carried out the restoration. The work preserved the majority of the original architectural elements and uncovered part of the hidden frescoes, the Hermes among them. The rooms keep their high ceilings, antiques stand against the restored detail, and the modern fittings were worked in around both. Roussos writes of the house as “a place reborn from the desire to share with you the legend and history of the Golden Era of my island”.

The rooms

The six rooms fall into four categories. The Frescoes Suite is the largest at 32 square metres and takes its name from the painted work in it. The Grand Heritage Suites are 28 to 32 square metres, each with a balcony. The Noble Rooms are 18 to 20 square metres, and the Signature Room is 22. Every bed is a Beautyrest by Simmons.

By the house’s own account, several pieces of the furniture in the rooms were once used by Maria Callas, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Rudolf Nureyev.

The art in the house

Works from the owner’s own collection hang in the rooms and the public areas. They include “Snail” by the Greek artist Yannis Moralis, and “The Carousel” and “The Diptych” by Giota Sotiriou. The “Twin Horses”, the marble bedside lamps and the vintage lights with Lalique crystal come from the same collection.

Breakfast in the lounge

Breakfast is served in Mario’s Lounge, a room given over to the Syros merchant marine of the 1800s and the ships that crossed from the island. The food is local: artisan cheeses, seasonal fruit, freshly baked bread, traditional pies and the kitchen’s own specialities.

Who is this for

The house suits someone who would rather have a working Cycladic capital than a resort, and who will give a morning to architecture and art. Ano Syros, the medieval settlement, sits on the west hill, and the Catholic cathedral of Saint George there holds the oldest church organ in Greece. The neoclassical Orthodox church of Saint Nicholas, the Archaeological Museum, the Industrial Museum and the Hermoupolis Heritage Textile Museum are all within a walk. Boats reach Piraeus daily and flights from Athens take half an hour, in any season.