Verina Villa is a private estate on Sifnos that stands on the beach rather than above it. The address is Vathi beach, Sifnos, and the house sits on the sand of one of the quietest bays on the island.
The terms are whole estate only, never by the room, so a party takes the three buildings, the grounds and the included staff together for its dates.
Three standalone buildings make up the house, arranged around shared ground that runs to a saltwater pool, tennis court, hammam, gym, gardens, playground. A small yacht dock lies 300 metres away.
Part of the service comes with the estate. A three-person staff included in the rate looks after the cleaning, the pool and the garden, and the house keeps a daily maid service with a linen change every other day. Travel assistance and a concierge service are included too. Chef, private transfers, helicopter, in-villa massage: the estate arranges each of these on request, at extra charge, and dry cleaning and laundry on the same terms.
The hands behind it
Miltos Salemis and Isidora Chandeli run the villa, and two hotels on Sifnos with it: Verina Astra above Poulati and Verina Terra at Platis Gialos. Salemis was born on Sifnos and has lived there ever since, and Chandeli has spent most of her life on the island. He takes the operation and the daily management of the team. She is the designer of every Verina property, the villa’s interiors among them, and the style the three places share is hers. By her own account the plain, elegant aesthetic of Sifnian architecture is the highest luxury there is, and that reading governs what the rooms look like.
The plan of the house
Building A stands on three levels. A master bedroom with en suite bathroom, a living room and a private veranda take the top; the living and dining room and the open-plan kitchen take the ground; and below them there is a double bedroom with a king-size bed, a WC, a shower and a hammam area, with the gym alongside on its own access.
Building B is the fullest of the three. Its top level holds a master bedroom with en suite bathroom, a living room, a private veranda, two dressing rooms and two bathrooms. On the ground there are two double bedrooms with extra sofa beds, en suite bathrooms and private entrances. Building B puts its living room, open-plan kitchen, laundry and staff bedrooms on the underground level, below the bedrooms, so the working floor of the house sits under the sleeping one rather than next to it.
Building C is bedrooms and little else: two doubles with extra sofa beds, en suite bathrooms and private entrances on the ground, two more doubles with en suite bathrooms below, and the two levels connected inside.
Because the three buildings stand apart, a party large enough to fill the estate can gather on the shared ground without sharing a roof, which is how the house is meant to work: guests come together easily and keep a space of their own. Every room has its own air conditioning, a ceiling fan, Wi-Fi and a flat-screen TV, with beach and pool towels put out. The complex adds an outdoor lounge and dining area, and private parking.
Who is this for
The estate suits a whole party taken together: a family, a group of friends, a work retreat, a creative collective, a wellness group. Each building is whitewashed in the Sifnian manner and carries interiors of its own, so the three read as one house without repeating one another. Vathi is a fishing village, so an afternoon can be a swim and a walk to a taverna on the water, with coffee shops and a few shops for whatever the house has run out of.
