Santorini’s Vasilicos: Luxury from a Family Home

At The Vasilicos in Santorini, traditional terracotta terraces give onto broad, sweeping views of the caldera.

Fresh from its inclusion in a new Sunday Times feature on Europe's most memorable "casa hotels", owner Daphne Valambous talks about turning her family's Santorini home into a seven-suite hotel, the emotional side of hospitality, and why feeling at home might be luxury in its purest form.

On an island where luxury hospitality usually means dramatic architecture, infinity pools and caldera panoramas, The Vasilicos has drawn international attention for something far more personal: it never stopped feeling like a home.

The seven-suite property was recently chosen by The Sunday Times for a feature on "casa hotels" — intimate addresses where the boundary between hotel and home is intentionally softened through family presence, personal history and a focus on forging an emotional bond with guests.

For Daphne Valambous, however, the idea of a hotel that feels like home is no concept devised for guests. It is quite literal.

The Vasilicos was built in the 1980s by Vassilis Valambous, a devoted art collector, as his private hideaway and the family's summer home. When it passed to his children, Daphne and Yannis, they chose to turn it into a boutique hotel while keeping its history and identity central to the transformation. The family never set out to "create" a hotel, she says — they simply made adjustments so more people could visit their home.

For Valambous, the recent recognition matters all the more because it reflects the character the family has preserved — an unexpected honour, earned for the very reason they believe makes The Vasilicos special: that it "remains a home at heart".

In the interview below, Valambous looks back at summers at the family house, explains how its memories and traditions shape the hotel today, and reflects on intimacy, emotional connection and what true luxury in Greek hospitality can mean.

The Sunday Times placed The Vasilicos in its feature "The memorable hotels that really put the home in homely", which spotlights properties where family ties, personal history and a feeling of belonging define the guest experience. What does the recognition mean to you and the team?

Daphne Valambous: An unexpected honour, she calls it — one that resonates deeply, as the family had never heard the term "casa hotel" before. For a small, slightly "accidental" hotel, being chosen by such a prestigious publication is a real source of pride, especially given the calibre of the hotels featured alongside. What makes it more meaningful still is being selected for the very thing the family believes sets The Vasilicos apart — that it "remains a home at heart". Her hope is that the feature brings guests for whom the hotel is a perfect fit.

The feature is especially fitting because The Vasilicos never had to manufacture the feeling of a home — it genuinely was your family's, and the place where you spent much of your childhood. Did The Sunday Times capture something essential about the property?

Daphne Valambous: Indeed. Her father, a passionate art collector, had The Vasilicos built in the 1980s as his private hideaway and summer house, so it has always carried the feel of a happy holiday home. Converting it from family summer residence to seven-suite boutique hotel, the family soon realised, could only work if they honoured and respected the place's history and identity. They never created a hotel — they simply adjusted things so more people could visit their home. That the Sunday Times sensed this and placed them on such a shortlist is, for her, a great achievement.

Take us back to The Vasilicos before it became a hotel. Which memories of growing up and spending time there are the strongest?

Daphne Valambous: She begins with the two basil plants that once flanked the entrance of what is now the Vasilicos Suite — in a way, they gave the hotel its name. Each summer began with collecting the pots from the plant nursery on the drive in from the airport; each autumn, they went back to be replanted for the following year. Then there was the evening ritual of watering the plants to the sound of opera around sunset — a formative memory that shaped her idea of Santorini sunsets. Long lunches under the pergola, the terrace where she spent her childhood summers, came with guests constantly drifting in and out, while the layout's privacy balanced company and solitude. Her father's August birthday was always a bit of an event, as was the family's surprise when he adopted a cat which, fittingly for a Leo, he named King — honoured today in the King Cat Suite. And the after-parties, most memorably her brother's epic 30th birthday.

The Sunday Times also picks up on a charming detail: the family china still comes out at mealtimes. What else from the original home lives on at The Vasilicos?

Daphne Valambous: The tableware is one of her favourite things about The Vasilicos — it makes her feel at home. Greek summer dishes still arrive on the family's Blue Calico china, and since Burleigh continues to make the pattern, replacements remain within reach. Upstairs, the living room is almost untouched, its books and objects as they always were, and most of the original furniture still stands; the newer pieces were chosen so carefully that you would struggle to tell old from new. With so many guests coming through, routines must stay flexible, but the welcome letter always points people towards the island spots the family treasures — the kind of tucked-away places we gather in our guide to Greece's hidden beaches. In the suites, small touches invite guests to borrow a book for a sunbed or reach for a blanket and savour the night air, and she loves hearing that people have drifted off in the alcove of the Efta Suite. Finally comes Daphne's Details, her series of collaborations with artists and artisans.

And if Santorini stirs an appetite for the wider Cyclades, Hotel Mediterraneo on Ios offers its own quietly warm take on island hospitality.