21 May Loutra house at La Repubblica
Being a hundred years old on Tinos
Thick walls, spartan furnishings, few objects. A stone house in the village of Loutra, where days are marked by the energy of the island
In Loutra, girls from neighbouring villages used to come to the Ursuline convent to learn to weave carpets. The village remained tiny, ancient, Catholic, quiet almost deserted, immaculate. Our atypically enchanting summer house is just beyond the monastery, in the narrow streets of the village that are only passable on foot and quietly. A traditional hundred-year-old Cycladic stone house, with four-metre-high ceilings and walls smoothed like brushstrokes of hazelnut ice cream. From the courtyards, the view down the valley, past the many dovecotes of Tinos, is reconciling and one can only hear the bees buzzing in the bushes that separate the property from the Mediterranean wilderness.
Stratos now lives in central Greece, in a magical region of mountain villages, lakes, forests, canyons. We know nothing about this man. We do know that he has chosen to use classical architectural forms, to contain a few elements that are both gentle and contemporary.
A sailor’s oil lamp, a yellow-beaked wooden hallway for dressing rooms, long young wooden benches, a Nordic-style black wood stove, a dreamy atmosphere in every room. Outside, Orthodox influences and Venetian lines run throughout the stone arches and inlaid marble of the villages, while the olive blues and greens of doors and windows confirm that we are in Greece.
Source: La Repubblica
Author: @meravigliapaper @laurataccari