Tella Thera opened above Kissamos Bay on 14 July 2025, with 20 suites and a Signature Villa spread across 15,000 square metres of slope covered in olive trees. Much of the accommodation sits partly underground, with planting carried over its roofs. The way the hotel is built is the clearest way to understand it, more so than any general promise of low impact.
The setting
Kissamos is a town on the coast of north-west Crete, around an hour by road from Chania International Airport. The hotel is eight minutes from the town centre and faces the broad bay, with mountains closing the horizon to the south and west. The beaches of Balos and Falassarna are in the wider region, but both are a drive away from the hillside.
The site falls away like an amphitheatre through an olive grove. The rooms follow its contours in low bands, so the planted roof of one level becomes part of the view from the path above. The shared pool sits on a wider terrace near the centre, while private plunge pools sit beside individual gardens lower on the slope.
The people behind it
The founders, Loukas Tourkomanis and Chevon Low, hired Stella Pieri and her team at Pieris.Architects, with Karolos Chanikian responsible for the gardens. The brief was to fit a small independent hotel into an existing olive grove. Low buildings follow the natural contours of the site.
The existing trees were part of that brief. Those that had to be moved were replanted on the property or on neighbouring farmland. From above, their trunks break up the geometric beds on the roofs, so the new levels never form one continuous planted platform.
The design
The architects set the buildings partly below ground to keep them inside the slope. Sand-coloured walls appear only where rooms and terraces need light, then disappear beneath roofs planted with native and Mediterranean species. From the air, paths and gardens fill as much of the view as the buildings.
Inside, microcement, a cement-based finish, curves the walls into arches and vaulted passages. Oak doors and wardrobes repeat those curves, and rough boulders serve as reception counters and low tables. At the bar of Anemoia, the restaurant, an olive tree grows under a round skylight. These details carry the approach to the land indoors.
The rooms
Of the 20 suites, 17 have private plunge pools. The smallest suite plan covers 140 square metres: 50 indoors and 90 on the garden terrace. That puts almost twice as much space outside the room, where gravel, planting and water extend the suite into the hillside.
The Signature Villa covers 380 square metres, with 160 inside and 220 outside, and has a larger infinity pool. Across the categories, the main difference is the amount of private water and outdoor ground. The arches and curves inside stay the same.
The restaurant
Anemoia is the restaurant and bar, arranged around its olive tree under a round opening in the roof. Its menu is mostly plants, drawn partly from the hotel’s edible garden and nearby farms. A long shared table, arched windows and the tree at the centre bring the same materials into the hotel’s most public room.
The spa
Thaleria, set underground, continues the plan below the surface, with an indoor magnesium pool, a steam room, a sauna and treatment rooms. Its arched window opens onto dense greenery, and a yoga terrace sits on the roof above. It is fitting for this hotel that the spa is underground.
Energy and water
Solar panels, geothermal systems, low-flow water fittings and native planting are all part of the specification. Without figures from the hotel in operation, they do not show its overall effect on the environment. The clearer evidence is what can be seen: the hillside kept in its original shape, rooms set partly underground and replanted trees growing along the roofline.
Who is this for
Tella Thera suits travellers who want a slow stay in western Crete and who care how a hotel is built and how its kitchen works. The restaurant follows a zero-waste approach. A long oak table is laid with dark plates, candles, lemons and wildflowers beside an arched window over the sea. Candles line the edge of the indoor pool at Thaleria. On the suite terraces, thatched parasols stand beside the plunge pools, looking across the bay to bare mountains.
