Mandarin Oriental, Costa Navarino puts its largest rooms under a heading of their own on its stay pages: Specialty Villas. The tier holds 2 villas, and the larger is the Five Bedroom Royal Villa, on a hillside above Navarino Bay at Pylos, in Messenia. The property has a single five-bedroom villa, so the plural in the tier’s name is a category and not a count.
The resort opened in August 2023 as the first Mandarin Oriental in Greece and holds 99 accommodations. A.N. Tombazis & Associates Architects designed it with K-Studio. The villa came later. It was introduced with the three-bedroom Pool Villa for the 2024 season, in an announcement dated 8 March 2024, and MKV Design drew its interiors for TEMES S.A. as a new build completed in 2024.
What the villa holds
The villa runs to 1,095 sqm, or 11,786 sqf. The bedrooms number 5, each en-suite, and with a living area and a terrace carrying a private pool, a barbecue and lounge seating, it sleeps up to 10 guests. The interiors are in earthy tones and the terrace looks over Navarino Bay.
The interiors follow the rest of the resort while keeping a language of their own. Specially finished plaster walls sit against stone ones, some of them ribbed like ancient Greek pillars. Cabinetry is in woven timber, the bed surrounds are curved timber panels carrying simplified Grecian motifs, those motifs return in the rugs, and laser-cut bronze blinds hang at some of the windows. MKV Design worked to the resort’s founding principles on sustainability and set refined Greek workmanship beside the Asian references the brand carries.
Beyond the bedrooms there is a kitchen, a bath with a walk-in shower, and an outdoor lounge on the private terrace. Wellness takes 2 rooms indoors: a private spa treatment room and a private fitness room, so a therapy is given in the villa itself.
The pool is terraced, and the villa sweeps around it towards the Ionian Sea, then sinks back into the ground under a planted roof.
The service attached
A private host attends the villa for 12 hours a day, covering the daily arrangements of a stay and a guest’s own preferences. A dedicated private chef comes with the villa for up to 4 hours a day, and breakfast is served in the villa as a matter of course.
The stay also carries a EUR 300 spa credit, 1 complimentary in-villa fitness session, water sports and the use of a pool or beach cabana at Ormos Beach Club. Return transfers are included, as is the minibar, alcohol excepted. Against the tier as a whole the resort lists therapies brought from The Spa, private fitness facilities and water sports arranged for the guest.
Where it sits in the tier
The other Specialty Villa, the three-bedroom Pool Villa, runs to 383 sqm and sleeps up to 6 guests, and Alexander Waterworth drew its interiors. That leaves the Royal Villa at close to 3 times the area.
A private pool is standard at the villa grade: every villa at the resort has one, and every accommodation a terrace or balcony. What separates the Royal Villa is its area, the chef on top of the host, and the 2 wellness rooms inside the building.
Who is this for
A single party of up to 10 taking one house for a long stay, and a family that wants children and grandparents under the same roof. Bedrooms are set as 1 king or 2 twins. Around the villa the resort keeps a hammam, hair and beauty rooms and restaurants including Oliviera and Brasserie de la Bay, so an evening can be spent at home or out. The character is Messenian: the southwest corner of the Peloponnese, quiet, and suited to long days.
