Bridge For Design Spring 2014 Bridge For Design Spring 2014 Issue | Page 122

T

he Venetians gave Spetses its name, pronouncing this
small isle off the Peloponnese the ‘Island of Aromas’, on
account of its many flowers. It is the natural beauty of
the place, and its close proximity to the main-land, that
make Spetses – which you can cycle around in just half a day – so
popular with Athenians, who own many of the summer houses here.
Cars, apart from occasional taxis, are banned, the pace of life is slow
and the views are mesmerising.
No wonder, then, that plots of land for building new houses rarely
come up for sale and that when they do, they are subject to tight
planning restrictions.
Designer John Stefanidis was already working with a Greek Cypriot
family on their house in London when they told him that they
had bought a scenic plot on Spetses, just outside the main town, and
that they would like him to design a house on the site.
‘I’ve always admired John’s work,’ says the owner. ‘The great
thing about him is that he understands his clients very quickly. So
when we got the land, we told him straight away and the two projects in
London and Spetses overlapped.’
Egyptian-born John Stefanidis knows Greece well and is steeped
in Greek culture. Since 1967 he has had a house on the island of
Patmos, where he spends part of the summer, and where he first
started working on residential projects before basing his office in
London in the late Sixties.
Yet Spetses – one of the Saronic islands and cradle of the Greek
struggle for independence in the 1820s – was not a region he knew
well until he began working there.
‘On Spetses, it’s very much an island way of life,’ says John. ‘There
are restrictions on how you can build and we had to design the
architecture of the house – which we conceived from scratch – in ►
The key living spaces in the house are at ground level with some bedrooms in
a lower-ground floor. Blue and white are the key colours throughout.

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Bridge for Design Spring 2014