Situated on the south coast of Kefalonia, this inspirational home offers views to die for.
Your first impression of this home located on Kefalonia’s south coast is likely to be its prime position on the cliff edge, with only an infinity pool and a steep shelf of rock and grass separating it from the sea.
Vital stats
Designer Georgios Dimitropoulos
Location South coast of Kefalonia
Date completed 2006
Views Sea, sea and more sea
Best rooms living room and terrace
Unique details Smart house technology
Future plans for house family home
“The plot was called Vardiola, derived from the Italian word quardiola, meaning observation point. It was so idyllic, overlooking the sea and a small rock of an island that once had a shrine on it to the Greek god of the sky and weather, Zeus. It’s a spiritual place, and a nice thing to have on the horizon,” says Georgios Dimitropoulos, co-founder of AG Developments.
Sixteen years ago, Georgios, now 35, and Sarah, 36, met at Swansea University, where Georgios was studying Engineering and Sarah studied Fine Arts. Georgios had always wanted to live and study abroad, and chose Swansea because he wanted to be close to the sea. A mutual Turkish friend introduced him to Sarah. For their first date, Georgios persuaded the security guard to let them into the campus theatre
“I dragged the grand piano into the centre of the stage and in the semi-darkness of the empty theatre, I played a piece of music I had composed for Sarah, inspired by her beauty – ridiculously romantic. She was as embarrassed as I was!”
It evidently worked, though, as the couple lived and worked in Swansea for seven years before deciding to try life in Athens.
“Neither of us enjoyed life there. We found that we were spending all our time yearning for weekend breaks on Kefalonia, where I spent much of my childhood, so after a year we decided to move to the island and start again.”
A new life
On Kefalonia Sarah set up a pottery studio and Georgios set up a property development company with his father, Angelos.
“My father has 30 years more experience in this industry than I have. He’s been doing this for 48 years. He began working on building sites at the age of 12, going to secondary school at night!” Georgios says, clearly still in awe of his father, “Although we were equal business partners, I became his apprentice and he taught me everything from how to mix cement, lugging heavy materials around, digging, and laying foundations, to bricklaying, plastering, plumbing and painting. I willingly did it all because it was important to me to know every skill, however menial, so that I could gain technical expertise. After a year of that I spent another year honing my design skills. It helped that I was already confident with computers and proficient in Computer-aided design, but I always felt I had to work extra hard to keep up. Making a mistake on a building site can be very expensive and potentially fatal. I spent hours on building sites!”
In 1998 they renamed the company AG Dev after their initials. Today they have built more than 150 homes on Kefalonia, mainly for locals, although Georgios comments that increasing numbers of Britons and Italians are investing on the island.
“It’s still early days for the property market here, but Brits do move here. It started about ten years ago. In 1998 we were the first company to advertise to the British. We sold 40 houses out of 150 to the Brits. That only happened in the last few years. Lots of people buy land and develop their dream house. Others choose custom built homes. The island is still much cheaper than other parts of Greece, despite increases in the last five years due to growing interest from the British and the Italians. Many Italians choose to build on the northern part of the island and rent them out seasonally for six months from May 1st until October 31st – as long as the charter flights last.”
Georgios can see a variety of reasons why this trend is developing.
“The island has so much natural beauty, the locals are friendly, and though the Kefalonia is the fifth largest island in Greece, there are only 40,000 people living here. This is one of the most sparsely populated islands in Greece. Due to this the environment is pure, and most plots of land for sale are large. On the peaks of the mountains, a fir forest grows that is unique to this island, due to the soil, climate and altitude. About 80 years ago, the government declared it the first protected national park of Greece, as an area of outstanding natural beauty.”
Creating the perfect home
Georgios and Angelos decided to transform the Vardiola plot into an urbanisation of just four houses, with Georgios and his family living in one, and his parents spending six months of the year in another. Two local friends, Vangelis and Anna Kekatos, live in the third villa, and two life-long Welsh friends live in the fourth one. The result is a very amicable little community.
Though each of the homes is luxurious and they all benefit from the expansive sea views, it is the home belonging to Sarah and Georgios that really takes your breath away. Creating the house took six years, with two years planning and gaining all the relevant permits, two years of designing the property, and two years of construction. The most complicated element was the foundation, which had to withstand the shifting soils of the cliff edge.
“The town hall thought we were crazy to attempt building in such a location, but we took all the necessary precautions, constructing a unique infrastructure, including special foundations and irrigation systems and planting thousands of pikrodeafness shrubs, a species that has very long, complex roots that help to sustain the cliff’s stability. My mother, Irini, helped us to design the gardens.”
After all this, the couple have a home that from the outside resembles traditional villas on the island, with architectural details such as circular columns, decorative features and earth colours. However, the interior is exceptional.
Sarah and Georgios both agreed that the key feature was the view, so they decided that every element of the design would be geared towards making the most of this. As a result, the first room you walk into is the vast, white canvass of a living room, with white walls, white floor tiles and a white, peaked ceiling all serving as a backdrop of clean, crisp lines that lead you to the outstanding views outside.
The wall facing the Ionian sea is almost entirely glass, with doors that slide right back allowing access onto a spacious terrace where the family spend much of their time in summer. In winter, the thick, double glazed glass of this wall ensures that the house remains warm.
Despite the modern style, the living room breathes comfort, with an L-shaped arrangement of sofas from an Italian company called Uccello, draped with a soft downy throw from Ikea.
Sarah’s artwork adds a personal touch, while a plasma flat-screen TV serves as a framed image for much of the time, as the couple sometimes select an image from their travels to show on the screen.
Crucial details
The skills Sarah and Georgios both gained at university have contributed to the remarkable house they now live in. Recessed alcoves on either side of a discreet fireplace provide a showcase for treasures picked up on the couple’s travels, including a Buddha’s head from Thailand, and sculptures found in India and South America as well as a beautiful piece created by Sarah. Aside from the architectural design, aided by Sarah, Georgios’ contribution was the smart house technology.
“The villa features a built-in intelligent automated system and is equipped with a plethora of technological conveniences. The basic idea of a Smart Villa is a comfortable environment in which the villa’s occupants can enjoy a relaxed way of life, supervising their business affairs from home."
Georgios and an associate electrical engineer, Georgios Panagiotopoulos, have been researching, developing and experimenting with their own Intelligent System called ‘Home Control Integration’ for a period of four years.
"The systems integrated include high speed satellite internet, internet TV, indoor and outdoor surveillance, voice recognition, solar power management, energy efficiency management, and a sophisticated security system. Villa Vardiola features flat screens and wall speakers in every room and a media distribution system whereby music and videos can be played in each room, including the bathroom, gymnasium and spa room. You can listen to your favourite internet radio station while taking a swim in the pool as easily as while having a bath in the house, or watch a recorded favourite satellite programme while exercising in the gym,” he says. “It is not only technology that makes a villa smart – it’s is about enjoyment and convenience.”
As dusk falls, the pale surfaces of the room are warmed by 25-watt halogen lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling high above. The same type of bulbs glow inside a beautiful pair of cylindrical lamps that Georgios designed and a friend, Tasos Bitsakakis, created from immense exhaust pipes, perforated to cast frilled pools of light across the walls.
Nautical themes
Georgios and Sarah have been living here for two years now, having moved in just six months before their son was born. Since the arrival of Angelos, named after his grandfather, the couple have had to babyproof many of the elegant furnishings, and their uncluttered existence has been harder to maintain, and the nursery is a mass of brightly coloured toys. The couple’s baby daughter, Lily, was born in October 2007. The changes amuse Georgios.
“The secret to living minimally is to have a storage room somewhere and to only collect things from there when you need them,” he laughs.
Along with the nursery, downstairs there is a utility room, guest bedroom, bathroom, and storage room, plus the master bedroom with an en suite bathroom and walk-in wardrobe. The final room, one that Angelos isn’t yet allowed to enter, but which Georgios may have to vie for in later years, is the sound-proof home cinema, and Georgios’ office where he can check emails, write business plans and design future projects on an immense screen projected onto the blank back wall of the room. This room has no windows – essential if you don’t want the endless views to distract you.
“In here I am completely isolated from everything – it’s where I go when I don’t want any distractions, yet want to be close by in case Sarah and the children need me. I can come in here, play my favourite piece of classical music, and work.”
In addition, there is a subtle nautical theme throughout the house, with all wooden surfaces varnished with teak oil, the same substance used to protect the decks of yachts. A replica of Georgios’ dream boat is displayed in pride of place in the kitchen, on a shelf above a long window that reveals a broad strip of sea and sky, so that whenever the couple are cooking they can look up and feel that they are on a ship far out at sea.
The boat was bought at an exhibition in Athens five years ago. When considering whether he will ever buy the full-sized version, Georgios shakes his head.
“If anything, I will build it,” he says.
And I have no doubt that he will.