Stories

Passage of the day

Just as the earliest tinges of the dawn flushed the eastern sky and turned the pillared Parthenon to a broken harp hung in the pearly horizon

Mark Twain · The Innocents Abroad

Low white buildings set in gardens along a rocky shore, most of them with a small blue pool of their own, a curve of sand at one end and a yacht anchored in the clear water

EstatesElounda

Elounda Mare, the house that gave every bungalow a pool

Elounda Mare opened at Elounda in 1982 as a village of low buildings in the olive groves above Mirabello Bay, and its owners say it was the first hotel in the Mediterranean to put a pool at every bungalow.

7 October 2026

Aerial view of a low white resort along a rocky headland, terraced suites with small blue pools set above three sheltered sand coves, jetties and moored boats on turquoise water

EstatesElounda

Elounda Peninsula, the all-suite house cut out of its neighbour

7 October 2026

A wide calm bay on the Ionian seen from the air, a long pale beach lined with rows of white umbrellas running below wooded slopes to a green headland

EstatesCorfu

Ikos Dassia, the first Ikos house on Corfu

7 October 2026

Pools and shaded loungers on terraces below low pale buildings, framed by cypress and olive trees, with the Gulf of Toroneos stretching flat and silver beyond

EstatesHalkidiki

Ikos Oceania will redraw all 290 rooms and suites for 2027

7 October 2026

An aerial view of a sheltered bay, a crescent of pale sand set with white umbrellas and canopied daybeds below a flat-roofed white pavilion, cypresses and pines behind it and wooded hills across the water

EstatesCorfu

Ikos Odisia, the second Ikos house on Corfu

7 October 2026

Pale sand running along a clear turquoise gulf, with white umbrellas and loungers set out below low stone-faced bungalows standing among trees and lawn

EstatesHalkidiki

Ikos Olivia, refurbished in two phases

7 October 2026

The King George and the Hotel Grande Bretagne lit at dusk on Syntagma Square, with the Greek Parliament across the square and light trails on the road between.

EstatesAthens

The King George stands on ground that was built on twice

7 October 2026

The main infinity pool set into the hillside above Vlicha Bay, with stone terraces stepping down the slope towards the headland and the open sea

EstatesRhodes

Lindos Blu, cut into the hillside above Vlicha Bay

7 October 2026

Aerial view of low white and black stone buildings with grass-planted roofs, each fronted by its own narrow blue pool, arranged in rows that step down a slope to a sandy beach and the sea

EstatesHeraklion

Nana Princess, the black stone house outside Hersonissos

7 October 2026

Aerial view of flat-roofed plaster and stone bungalows with private pools stepping down a green hillside above the Mirabello Gulf in late afternoon light

EstatesElounda

The house Costantza Sbokou drew at Plaka

7 October 2026

A long open walkway under a slatted timber pergola, round black pillars down its right side casting striped shadows across pale stone paving, with a dark fire bowl in the middle and planting and palms beyond

EstatesHeraklion

At Karteros Beach, a 1968 bungalow hotel kept its modernist pillars

7 October 2026

An aerial view of Sani Club on a wooded headland, its terraced suites and pools stepping down through pine forest to a sand beach and turquoise shallows.

EstatesHalkidiki

Sani Club: the quiet end of the estate

7 October 2026

Sani Dunes from the air at dusk, a lit turquoise lagoon pool winding between flat-roofed low-rise blocks with planted roofs, the Aegean and the wooded Sani headland and its tower beyond.

EstatesHalkidiki

Sani Dunes: the pool reaches every door

Opened at the end of June 2017 on the Kassandra shore, Sani Dunes holds 136 low-rise rooms and suites in two quarters, each set around its own pool, drawn by Nimand Architects of Thessaloniki.

7 October 2026

The lit neoclassical facade of The Dolli at dusk, stone urns along its roof balustrade and a glazed rooftop pavilion behind them, with the Acropolis and the Parthenon rising over the houses of Plaka.

EstatesAthens

The Dolli at Acropolis: the mansion that came back

A listed mansion a few streets under the Acropolis, drawn by Andreas Kriezis in the 1920s, worked on for seven years and open as a hotel since the first day of 2023.

7 October 2026