Rosewood plans to open Blue Palace in 2027, its first hotel in Greece, on the Gulf of Elounda in eastern Crete. The plans are unusually detailed for a resort not yet built: 154 rooms and suites, private pools for 85 of them, and six restaurant and bar interiors designed separately within K-Studio’s design for the whole resort. These figures describe what is planned. Nobody can stay there yet.
The setting
The resort will stand on the coast between Plaka and Elounda, looking across the water to Spinalonga, a small fortified island in the gulf. The existing Blue Palace already faces Spinalonga, and the new resort will keep that view under its new operator. Rooms and terraces can be redrawn, but the island remains the point from which the site takes its bearings.
Phāea keeps ownership of the property. Rosewood brings a new name and a new way of running a resort that is already known on Crete, and the redevelopment uses the ground and buildings of Blue Palace. An established property is beginning a new period under Rosewood.
Earlier opening dates have passed, and the schedule is now 2027, while construction and preparation continue. The designers still have time to change details, so the figures below describe the current plans for an unfinished resort.
The design
A tall arched entrance, pale stone, cypresses and a formal circular courtyard make the planned arrival grand and symmetrical. K-Studio is responsible for the resort-wide work, both the architecture and the interiors. The published images are renderings. They show the intended forms and planting, but not how the spaces will feel in use.
The London-based Greek interior designer Afroditi Krassa has a narrower brief: the interiors of the six restaurants and bars. The two practices have different responsibilities on the project, so the dining rooms may have a style of their own within the resort. Their menus and service have not been announced.
The challenge is continuity. Blue Palace already has an identity that comes from its stepped site and its views across the gulf. Rosewood and K-Studio are keeping the address while changing the route through it. With a much more formal entrance added above, the finished resort will have to keep the old connection with the water clear.
The rooms
Private pools are planned for 85 of the 154 rooms and suites. That is a majority of the rooms, so a pool of one’s own will be part of the basic offer, well beyond a small top category.
Three more outdoor pools are planned across the shared grounds. On a stepped coastal site, that spread may reduce the daily pull towards one central terrace. It also adds a large amount of water to a site on Crete. The finished shade, planting and use of resources will matter as much as the clean blue shapes in the renderings.
The restaurants
Six restaurants and bars are planned, enough for different hours and settings across a resort of this size. So far, the design brief is the firmer part of the story, and the restaurants have no names. Krassa’s rooms can be judged once they are built and the kitchens have names.
The wellness
Wellness will centre on Rosewood’s Asaya programme, with areas for hydrotherapy (treatments that use water), a movement studio, a fitness centre and a yoga pavilion planned alongside it. These facilities are planned for 2027, so Asaya’s treatments and their results can be judged only after the resort opens.
Who is this for
Rosewood Blue Palace is planned for guests who want a pool of their own and a view of the sea on the north-east coast of Crete. Plaka, at one end of its shore, is a small fishing village, and Elounda, at the other, is a port. In the renderings, umbrella pines, olive trees and a fan palm frame a cobbled forecourt with a stone fountain. At the existing Blue Palace, a colonnade of round stone arches stands beside a still pool that runs in beneath it.
