Hello from Greece!
Specifically from the island of Syros, the capital of the Cyclades, an island I had not thought to visit until a Greek friend of mine urged me to, having holidayed here last summer. ‘You will love it’ she said ‘amazing restaurants, incredible architecture, culture, shops and beautiful beaches to boot!’ And she is not wrong!
To cap it all, we are staying in the most incredible house which was built in 1870 by the Mayor of Hermoupolis, the capital of Syros. It has been lovingly restored by Tobias Follett. The island and his wonderful house both have a fascinating history and Toby very kindly agreed to write about it for me…
“I always dreamed of having a year-round home on a Greek island. But a dear Greek friend told me I was “too sociable.” I’d go nuts outside the tourist season in most of the Greek islands. In the winter they turn into rocky outposts of whistling wind, everything shuttered up with a handful of goats for neighbours. There was one exception: Syros. The administrative capital of the Cyclades islands, its main town, Hermoupolis, has a winter population of 20,000 and is “proper Greece,” not just a playground for summer tourists. I’d never been there before. I immediately booked a room overlooking Vaporia Bay, Syros’ town beach.
On the first day, floating in the world’s most beautiful swimming pool, I looked up at the sweep of 19th-century marble mansions lining the bay and said to myself, “I want to live here forever.”
One of those mansions was for sale. It cost less than my studio flat in London and had been on the market for over ten years. What was wrong with it? Granted, the small garden out front was so overgrown I couldn’t tell if there was a decent sea view. And it didn’t appear to have a kitchen or a way to fit one in. It belonged to a very old gentleman with the same name as the street address: Alexandros Maschas. It was named after his grandfather, also Alexandros, who built the house and was a former mayor of Hermoupolis.
For a hundred years it was one of the richest towns in the world. It was founded, all of a sudden, in 1820, at the start of the Greek War of Independence, when wealthy Greek refugees fled from Turkey to the sparsely populated island of Syros, a French protectorate, to be safe from attack. These rich refugee merchants and ships’ captains built Hermoupolis from scratch (like Milton Keynes!). It was to be an architectural anthem to Greek nationalism and independence, a city of magnificent churches, mansions, and streets of marble. It aspired to become the industrial and commercial centre of the Eastern Mediterranean and Greece’s main port. By 1850, thirty years later, that’s pretty much what happened. They even built an opera house, a mini version of Milan’s Scala. And by 1899, Mayor Alexandros Maschas was running the whole caboodle—from what is now my home!
Luckily, there wasn’t anything seriously wrong with the house, and there wasn’t a lot I could do if there was: Hermoupolis is a listed town, so the façade is strictly protected. I was able to change the layout inside in a limited but critical way, creating a large kitchen-dining room, adding two more bathrooms, and splitting a one bedroom annex off from the main house—perfect to live in while renting the main house in the summer.
The house had been refurbished in the early 1980s by the Maschas family with horrendous avocado green, brown, and orange bathroom tiles and fittings. As I started to strip it all out, I inevitably ended up gutting the place, turning it into a major rebuild.
It was hard to decide what feel to give the house. But after trimming the greenery away from the windows, the sublime sea view of the islands of Tinos, Delos, and Mykonos poured in from every orifice! Most of the work was already done by its magnificent position.
I just needed to follow my design philosophy: avoid anything that looks too mass-produced (except mod cons), strip out anything that annoys me, and not add anything I don’t love. While I lean towards “Mediterranean rustic minimalism,” the structure was more akin to London’s Eaton Square than a whitewash Cycladic village home. It had to “fit” with the city of Hermoupolis, so the theme I held onto was “19th-century elegance” with a bohemian twist (for a personal touch). A house like this would look ridiculous in a traditional Cycladic village. The bohemian bit was easy, but elegance had never been me. I kept the central theme in mind, made lots of trips to Athens junk shops, and fitted colourful cement encaustic tiles in the bathrooms. Many of Hermoupolis’ mansions were tiled this way, often with the classic Roman pattern I chose for my bathrooms. The tiles were mass-produced, but made by hand—a good compromise.
I’d noticed a touch of corniness, even kitsch, in the original interiors of the town’s mansions: rich merchants showing off with flourishes that may not have pleased those who preferred understatement. So, to match, I decided to go a bit nuts with touches of jazzy upholstery and some mad 60s junk shop chandeliers.
One of the unexpected bonuses when I bought the house was inheriting the old mayor’s entire library, which included many two-hundred-year-old leather-bound books, mostly treatises on Greek Orthodox religion. Fascinating as these are, most visitors seem far more interested in the collection of turn-of-the-century French soft pornography I found nestled between these mighty tomes. The Mayor of Hermoupolis was clearly a man of eclectic tastes.
As the restoration progressed and I got more confident, I decided to fulfil a long-held dream: to design and lay a Venetian-style black and white river-pebble mosaic, typical in many islands, often found in church yards. But the proper pebbles would cost over 500 euros a square meter before I’d laid a stone. It was going to cost thousands. I discovered that by buying smaller stones, it would cost ten times less in materials, so I ordered a ton of these. Then I realized the smaller the stones, the longer it would take to build. But I had dug up and cemented the terrace by now. I drew a sketch inspired by a Roman mosaic found on the island of Delos and Theo my builder and I forged ahead. Those are our initials at the corners. It took nearly three weeks. It doesn’t look like a proper Venetian large stone mosaic, but with the smaller pebbles, it looks more ancient—Roman even?
I bought the house just as the pandemic struck. Luckily, builders were allowed to work throughout, and the experience gave me the time and focus to complete the build in record time for me, just two years. Having worked on several restorations in Southern Italy, I was used to the horrors of building bureaucracy and dealing with builders. This time, however, the restoration was mostly a joyful experience. I hope that the joy and the powerful feelings of calm – even ecstasy – the house and its sea views give me are felt by visitors the moment they walk through the front door. The design of the house is calculated to ratchet this up to the max!”
Toby’s wonderful house is available to rent in the summer, you can contact him on this email toby.follett@gmail.com