The blue and white of the Greek flag could have been inspired by Mandraki, the tiny capital of Nisyros, an island in the Dodecanese, where whitewashed homes run up the hillside from the harbour, framed by the vivid blue of the sky and the sea. But one house in the village stands out: the two-storey home of the architect George Koukourakis, with its ochre facade and brightly coloured interior. Constructed in the 1890s, the house originally belonged to Koukourakis’s great-grandparents, who left Nisyros for Athens with his grandmother in 1929. A priest lived there until the outbreak of the second world war, and it was almost destroyed by an earthquake in the 1940s. It remained empty and in serious disrepair until Koukourakis started renovating it a decade ago – empty, that is, except for generations of illicit meetings between lovers. “There were dozens of names and hearts carved on furniture and stairs, dating back to the 40s,” says Koukourakis.
For the restoration, he wanted to be faithful to the original design, “but I had very few reference points, so I decided to kickstart the process by talking to my grandmother,” he says. “To my surprise, she still had vivid memories of the interior.” Koukourakis also found old pictures and talked to neighbours who had visited the house before it was damaged. He then peeled away almost 20 layers of paint and plaster to unearth traces of the original colour – a red oxide shade, which now appears in a richer tone in the hallway.
He painted the ground-floor dining room pea green and the kitchen mustard yellow, and used more neutral shades in the bedrooms and living room on the floor above, with their jaw-dropping views of the Aegean. Deciding to use the original scheme as his inspiration, Koukourakis sourced colours from the German company Keim, which specialises in matching historical paints.
He also reclaimed the striking original black-and-white Italian cement tiles on the ground floor, and ordered a bespoke kitchen with turquoise units. But Koukourakis wasn’t interested in simply creating a homage to the past. He has added mid-century Danish furniture combined with pieces from Athens flea markets and vintage lighting to complement the art nouveau and neoclassical elements. “I didn’t want a holiday home that looks like a museum,” he says. And now it’s finished, it gives him the perfect excuse to return every summer.
