"An ambitious eco-hotel This aristocratic and eccentric nine-room hotel was launched last summer in the port of Hermoupolis. Slightly set back from the water on a quiet street, the seashell-pink neoclassical building was constructed for a wealthy textile merchant in the 1920s and later sold to a shipowner before being transformed into the headquarters of the Cycladic tax authorities. It then lay empty until ex-Londoner, economist and writer Oana Aristide and her sister Jasmin, a doctor, reimagined it as the smartest place to bed down on Syros. They had both fallen in love with the island and on the spur of the moment decided to buy a holiday villa, but ended up with this grand townhouse instead. Despite having never run a hotel before, the duo, who happily describe themselves as amateurs, have created something wonderfully unexpected. References run the gamut from pop to baroque with velvet, oak herringbone-parquet floors and exquisite bathrooms decked out in Greek marble from the same quarries that supplied the Acropolis, Buckingham Palace, and the Louvre. Portraits from the owners’ contemporary art collection, including the soulful Anton Chekhov on the Road by Riccardo Vecchio, line the stairway and salon. And instead of the white-and-blue or grey palettes of most Greek island hideouts, here the colors range from intense duck-egg blue to soft powdery peach; the lobby, flanked by doric columns, is painted a majestic pistachio green and the bar is a den of cardinal red. It’s a splendid restoration of one of the regional capital’s historic buildings—no mean feat for a seasoned hotelier, and quite extraordinary for first-timers. A strong eco commitment and upcoming artist’s residency show that their ambitions go well beyond a simple B&B. —I.Z." - Becky Lucas
