Sandblu reopened on 8 April 2026 beneath the foothills of Ancient Thira, above the black sand at Kamari, and in doing so gave LXR Hotels & Resorts its first address in Greece. The house holds 66 rooms, suites and villas — 36, 27 and 3 respectively — of which 29 carry pools of their own. That it stands on the eastern shore rather than the caldera rim is the whole point of it.
The setting
Kamari sits on Santorini’s south-eastern coast, the opposite side of the island from Oia and its traffic, on a shore of black volcanic sand. Above it rises Mesa Vouno and, on the ridge, the ruins of Ancient Thira, from which walking trails come down toward the resort; the site itself carries protected ancient remains. Building codes on that ground are unusually severe — nothing may rise more than 23 feet — so the house does not stand up from the hillside but steps down it, a run of low geometric volumes descending toward the water. The beach at Kamari is a 10-minute walk below.
The provenance
The property is a young one. It opened in July 2024, owned by RMKA Private Company. A further 15 keys were added for the 2025 season, bringing the count to its present 66, and the wine cellar and garden followed in the same year.
The change of 8 April 2026 is a change of standing rather than of fabric. LXR is Hilton’s ultra-luxury collection, and Sandblu is the first house in Greece to carry it — a badge that arrives on the east coast, not on the caldera, which says something about where the island’s next decade is being written. Feisal Jaffer, global head of LXR Hotels & Resorts, described the property as quiet, design-led and deeply local; Leonidas Anagnostou holds it as general manager.
The design
The architecture and interiors are the work of Rockwell Group, the New York practice, with Christina Panagiotou of the Greek firm XKS Architects. The forms cascade — that is Rockwell’s own word for it — in geometric tiers toward the sea, cast in local stone, white-washed oak, travertine, marble and plaster, with the blue and sage-green accents the island expects and little else. Rockwell’s own record of the project credits it with the two villas and their infinity pools and outdoor living rooms, the all-day room Plateia beneath skylights and slatted beams, the Aroma wine bar, and the poolside under an oak pergola.
The rooms
36 rooms, 27 suites and 3 villas. Nearly half of them — 29 — hold a private pool, and the villas add expansive terraces and outdoor living rooms of their own. The interiors are whitewashed and volcanic-stoned, pastel blues and greys against wood and Greek marble, in the manner of a private apartment rather than a hotel corridor. The 15 rooms and suites drawn by Rockwell Group for the 2025 season set the register the rest now follows.
The table
There are six places to eat and drink. Nectar is the contemporary Greek room; Plateia runs from breakfast through to late dinner over the pool and the sea; Aroma is the wine bar, with a cellar of 300 labels, local and international; Stari is the bakery, for pastries and coffee. Santovini, opened in a natural cave on the property, takes private tastings of wine and olive oil. And Blu, the terrace restaurant Rockwell Group drew for the house away from Kamari, looks west over the caldera — which is to say the guests come to the famous view for dinner and return to the quiet side to sleep.
The spa
The Aurora Spa works with ESPA and 111SKIN, and holds a sauna, a steam room and a heated indoor pool. Beside it, Nous & Sóma runs over two storeys, with Technogym equipment, a Pilates studio and Kinesis Vision. For 2026 the house added The Wellness Collective, a season-long programme of hosted practitioners and small-group sessions rather than a menu of treatments — the sort of thing that tells you the property intends to be lived in for a week and not photographed for an afternoon.
Santorini has spent a generation being visited on one edge of itself. A house of this order, opening at the other, quietly proposes a different way to take the island: the ruins above, the black shore below, and the caldera kept for the evening it deserves. The house makes the introduction, for those who ask.
