What we have learnt, Corfu’s traditional houses facades are mostly of plaster, less often of stone. The typical characteristics include arched arcades, stone window frames, shutters, simple windowless roofs and walls in one of literally several colors – neither white nor blue being one of them. The most common palettes are yellows, pinks, ochres and maroons. And of course yellowish stone.

Meraki Hills is meant to be a country house, set into a hill, between the forest surrounding the property and the olive trees in the garden. Taking this into consideration, having seen hundreds of houses in Corfu, we were mostly impressed by the stone houses of Old Perithia and the meticulously restored village of Rou.

We decided that our house would have a stone façade, arched arcades and traditional body. The orange roof is to refer to the church roof visible from the road. To this day we are not sure of the intention of Dori, our architect, but it is from the road that Meraki specifically refers to the traditional one-storey house, which consists of adjoining successive rooms.

We believe that our choice was the right one: not to violate the rural landscape with modern architecture, to integrate our house as well as possible into the surroundings, not to overwhelm the form, to respect the Greek tradition and the stunning landscape, and to enjoy the view – both from the road and the sea.