Since 2021 the House of Healing at The Rooster had worked on the body, the energy that moves through it, and the emotions held beneath. In 2026 it turned inward, to the cell. The wellness programme at the resort of 16 houses above Livadia beach, on the west coast of Antiparos, began a new chapter through a partnership with Skin Design London. With it came a set of longevity rituals built from infrared heat, red light, cold water and sound.
The house calls this a new dimension of care: the body’s internal biological cosmos, as it puts it, after years spent on the layers above. The 2026 season brought a method of its own, four named rituals, a full-spectrum infrared sauna, custom red-light and infrared therapy beds, an ice fountain guided by a therapist, and a facial protocol from a skin practice in Mayfair, London.
A new dimension of care
The four rituals share one vocabulary of heat, light, cold and sound, arranged differently each time. Deep Recovery & Release lasts about 60 minutes. It opens with far-infrared heat, moves through red and near-infrared light from above and below, then sound, and closes with cold. Longevity & Cellular Regeneration is the one led by light, at about 75 minutes. It is built around red and near-infrared light at several wavelengths and the processes linked with collagen production and tissue renewal. Stress Reset & Nervous System Balance, also about 75 minutes, ends with three rounds of guided cold. Metabolic Awakening & Body Renewal lasts about 60 minutes and uses cold in short, precise intervals for contrast.
The house describes them as four rituals, four outcomes and one elemental language. That is an unusually plain description of a carefully ordered thing. The sequence is the method, and the whole programme rests on that claim.
The method behind the rituals
The method was created by Effie Skotti, an environmental scientist with a PhD. She has spent more than three decades studying how the environment shapes human biology and the body’s ability to adapt and recover. Her path ran from environmental science and environmental engineering to a doctorate in the bioactivity of medicinal plants. It left her treating the body as a living system that adapts, instead of a set of separate symptoms.
From that, she built the Elemental Biomodulation Method. It combines light, heat, cold and sound in structured protocols intended to support the body’s own regulation. Light is for cellular energy and renewal, warmth for circulation and physical release, cold to regulate the nervous system, and sound to help the body settle. She will set out the principles in her forthcoming book of the same name. At the House of Healing they already exist as the four rituals, which a guest can book by dialling 603 from a stone house among the dunes.
She works alongside the resident practitioners the house has kept for years. They include Abhilash Nair, its expert in Ayurveda, the traditional medicine of India, who has practised for two decades. The new method sits beside the old one.
A London protocol in the Cyclades
The facial menu includes SDL TIGHTEN BOOST, described as a lymphatic recovery, protection and tightening treatment for skin affected by travel, stress, inflammation and fatigue. It begins by calming the nervous system and draining the lymph. Once the skin is receptive, it adds antioxidant repair and brightening, and it introduces controlled tightening last.
The protocol comes from Skin Design London, the practice founded by Fatma Shaheen, who is known for non-invasive skin tightening. TIGHTEN BOOST is the brand’s first device, combining five firming and lifting technologies in one protocol. The facial is the part of the partnership a guest can see. The light beds, the sauna and the ice are the rest of it, out of sight by design.
The island
Antiparos is small and low, a short crossing from Paros, and it is known for being overlooked. The Rooster opened there in 2021, the life’s work of its founder, Athanasia Comninos. Its 16 houses are scattered among hills and dunes so that each has its own view, its own shade and its own privacy. The season runs from the middle of May to the first days of October.
Nothing about the new programme draws attention to itself. The House of Healing is open daily from 10am to 8pm. Every treatment begins with a consultation that asks about sleep, nutrition, old injuries and stress before anyone decides what the hour should hold.
Who is this for
The House of Healing suits a guest who wants new technology alongside older healing traditions. Its menu includes Ku Nye, a Tibetan massage with warm oils, herbal compresses and heated stones, and a potli massage with warm bundles of herbs and spices. The houses are low, built in stone and whitewash, and scattered through scrub above a sandy bay. In the courtyard, a long green-tiled plunge pool lies under a reed canopy beside a dry-stone wall. The yoga deck stands under a pergola of peeled poles and split cane, facing reeds and dry hills.
