1830. The Santorinean family Sigalas builds a sheepfold hewn in the rock, in the settlement of Karterados in the center of Fira, to hide their animals when pirates raided the island. Forty-seven years later, the cave is converted into a home to house the large family with the children and grandchildren who expected to be given pancakes with sugar every night. One and a half centuries later, the home that remains today a home, near that a separate place for the goats, the grandmother’s house and a canava, the family winery where the year’s crop was stoically aging in oak barrels, were converted into a luxurious, intimate lodge with three suites: Canava (= winery), Eutopia (=seeking of the best possible world), and Lala (=grandmother in the Santorinean dialect). A conversion that paid meticulous attention to preserve the original character of the complex.
1956, the island's powerful earthquake rocks the house and the family receives grant money from the state for restoration and the creation of an additional, new home adjacent to the cave house. The rebuilding process commences in 1964 when all the family members, from the father to the youngest grandchild, go to the beaches of Santorini. There, they collect tiny sea pebbles and remodel with them the former sheepfold into a home, maintaining the small space for the animals in the caves and putting them in at night. This material, the pebbles of the sea, in combination with the theraic earth and the porcelain, provides the home with static strength and geometric stability. It is the same building material, the same soil, with which the Suez Canal was built.
(= Winery in the Santorinean dialect. This was usually a cave and was a constituent part of the islanders’ residences.)
This canava with the multiple chambers will keep you cool in summer and warm in winter owing to the stable temperature that each canava has to uphold for the refined and graceful aging of wine. The dominant white calming shades on the walls and the furniture harmoniously coexist with warm colors, colors identical to the Santorini sky and the show that it gives every sunset. Colors reminiscent of an amalgamation of the theraic earth and the volcanic ash that covered Akrotiri in 1613 B.C. These already striking features accented with the black stone, the volcanic material with which this canava was built one hundred and fifty years ago, make a definite promise to accommodate you in everything that have always mattered: in feelings that are born, in serene places, in places with pure-hearted people, in places steeped in history. If paradise exists, it has to look like this.
(= a) "(locus amoenus): the literary term used to describe a place of an idyllic landscape, the key attributes of which are lush vegetation, shade, gentle breeze and running water", b) "seeking of the best possible world").
The guest opens the door of his suite and enters another world, a respite from ordinary life. Antiquity, though principal, transcends its era and becomes inextricably intertwined with a contemporary design, dramatic features and the art deco element that triumphs in this suite: Arches housing glass doors, the opulence of the coach, the rock above the bed as an organic texture of the suite. The jacuzzi pool with its many twists and turns that “hugs” the water, the light that is highlighted as the protagonist of an Impressionist painting, the aesthetics of tranquility that are periodically disturbed by the iron textures on the perimeter of the door leaf. The strict stylistic patterns in the alcoves of the room, and the simple, clear-cut geometry of the walls. The supremacy of the water adds a sense of exoticism that every paradise loves to evoke. A room and a word intricately linked to it, which enfolds what dreams do not say. One big word: “Aegean.”
(= grandmother in the Santorinean dialect. In Santorini and the other Cycladic islands, grandmother has always had a prominent place in the island culture.)
In an atmosphere of unique comfort and luxury, the bathtub and its equipment are located right next to the jacuzzi pool and face the living room to bestow the exoticism and elegance that your vacation on the island needs to have. The jacuzzi pool, along with private cinema right above the jacuzzi of the Lala Suite, uniquely complement the hospitality by creating the transcendent: One of the most unique cinemas in Santorini and around the world that exists in the privacy of a room. Grab a bottle of wine from your in-room wine-bar, place it next to the jacuzzi as you enjoy your favorite movie while swimming, and be blissfully marooned in the most cherished getaway of your life. It is here and it is now that the days are counted in dreams.
Τhe spa is situated adjacent to the outdoor swimming pool that is open to all hotel guests and above the “Canava” suite. Overlooking the little hamlet of Karterados, the blue dome of the village church that stoically stands there to celebrate all kinds of joys and meanings, and the vineyards that stretch into the distance as far as the eye can see, our signature open-air spa calls you to indulge yourself with specialized massage treatments based on the black volcanic stone.
The jacuzzi pool, along with the private cinema right above the jacuzzi of the Lala Suite, uniquely complement the hospitality by creating the transcendent: One of the most unique cinemas in Santorini and around the world that exists in the privacy of a room. Swim in the tranquil waters of your jacuzzi pool, just below your private cinema, and enjoy everything that dreams cannot dream.
The first hotel in the world that names, with every booking, a real, visible to the naked eye, star in the sky after you. At the moment when the sky becomes brilliantly golden and the full moon dominates the night, look at the sky and wallow in the unique White Cave Suites hospitality experience. *This experience is included in the rate of the Canava suite and is available upon request for the Eutopia and Lala suites. Such arrangement entails additional cost.
Romantic and unromantic people, nature lovers, travelers, and locals, when witnessing the iconic Fira sunset, become one: Sunset-seekers of the most unique sunset in the world. Right in the middle of the caldera, Fira is the capital and center of island life. Here municipal services and commercial shops of all sorts serve residents and visitors all year long.
In the most northwestern hamlet of the caldera, where all the postcards of the world get their theme and image, houses perched on the brink of the volcanic cliff above the Aegean Sea become the stuff of dreams. Sometimes rock-hewn buildings and cave houses with bathrooms outside the main corpus of the house, and always with an "alitana," a flower-bed replete with fragrant, sweet-smelling basil and honeysuckle to impregnate the atmosphere even more with intoxicating smell and love. Sometimes captains' houses with high ceilings, aristocratic décor, sophistication, and elegance reminiscent of the glory of another era when the Santorinean shipmasters ruled the seas.
