Originally from Greece, the families live in London and Oxford and have been visiting Skopelos each year for nearly two decades. We fell in love with the island and bought land high in the green woodland overlooking the town and the main harbour of Skopelos with dreams to build a wonderful home away from home.
The heart of the project is our focus on sustainability and the use of local materials and traditional building techniques, married with modern requirements for a comfortable and luxurious holiday home.
Landscaping has been a major component of the project, creating private terraces and pathways that wend through the site, connecting the houses together. Mature olive trees have been carefully preserved from when the site was an olive grove.
In the last two decades, we have planted an orchard of native plants and trees: citrus fruit trees including lemons, oranges and limes; newly established pomegranate and fig trees and stone fruit trees including cherry, apricot and plum. In the right months these provide abundant breakfast straight from tree to table.
Classic deep red flowers of bougainvillea wind around doorframes and garden archways, oleander shrubs bloom in pink and white and swathes of jasminoides and lavender line the pathways providing fragrance throughout.
Three houses were cut into the hillside rock with a series of terraces created for private gardens and open views to the harbour below. Each of the three houses has their own north facing private pool. The design of the site means that each house retains a wonderful sense of privacy, increased by the established landscaping.
Great care has been taken to design pathways that wend through the site with established planting to provide light fragrance throughout. Balconies and the outside kitchenette for The Almond villa are covered with a traditional bamboo lattice frame providing shade and air flow.
The excavation necessary to build on such a steep site provides the houses with a natural earth shelter to the south elevation, where the sun is hottest. The abundant supply of stone from the excavation was worked by hand and re-used to clad the outside of the buildings and retaining walls. These thick walls of over half a metre provide thermal mass, which alongside the stone cladding to the outside, allow for efficient insulation.
Traditional lime plaster is used on the interior walls resulting in naturally breathable walls which also improve air quality. The plaster was prepared on site by hand-mixing white marble dust and lime, the latter used as a binder in historical mortars since ancient times.
Timber balconies and ceilings are constructed from local sweet chestnut. Traditional brick cornices, timber lintels and slate roofs reinforce the local character. Below the “carrot” to perch on top of the chimney is fashioned using a traditional mould.
The houses have been designed to ensure comfortable and energy-efficient interiors both during the heat of high summer and during winter months when it has been known to snow.
In the summer large north-facing windows open up to take advantage of prevailing winds and high level cross-vents maximise natural ventilation. In the winter, underfloor heating creates a comfortable environment. The air source heat pump minimises power consumption of the heating and an efficient wood-burning fireplace can be used boost the heat of the main living area.
The site is off the water grid therefore all rainwater is and stored in basement tanks for re-use.
