Angelos Sikelianos Villa

Today:

The Sikelianos' Villa and its surrounding area is part of the Sikyon Coast Hotel complex.

History:

1916: Angelos Sikelianos, the famous Greek lyric poet and playwright, and his wife, Eva Palmer, build on the east side of Pefkias a beautiful villa were they spent a significant part of their life. This villa, which still exists, is a two story building with a cellar and it is built out of a special kind of stone brought from Agioi Theodoroi of Corinthia.

This villa of unique architectural style has opened its doors to welcome many important people of the arts and letters, for example, Nikos Kazantzakis, Dimitris Mitropoulos, Manolis Kalomiris, Isadora Duncan, Katina Paxinou, Alexis Minotis, Marika Kotopouli, Ghiannis Gryparis, Vassos Kanellos and many others.

1930: The Sikelianos-Palmer couple is forced to abandon their country house. Due to their debts, the building is sold by auction to professor Ioannis Mantzoufas, who was the son-in-law of the dictator Ioannis Metaxas.

World War II: The villa had been taken over by the Italian and then German occupation armies and it had been turned into a command center.

Late '50s: Spyros Typaldos, a ship-owner, buys this historical building from its previous owners of the region. Focusing on the Sikelianos' Villa and the nearby pine forest of Xylokastro, this Greek ship-owner creates the first large-scale organized holiday resort business in Greece and he plays a leading part in the development of tourism in Greece.