Designing a Greek Island Home: A Howark Renovation on Serifos

Designing a house on a Greek island is one of the real pleasures of this job. Our project on Serifos, a quieter island in the western Cyclades, was a renovation of a 1950s family house for Greek clients who know the island well. James knows it well too, having spent time there long before the project began, and that shared familiarity with Serifos shaped the way we worked from the first conversation onwards.

It is the kind of project we relish. It is also, in this part of the world, an unusual one.

Historic Renovation, Not New Build: The Road Less Travelled

Most island commissions today are new builds. Plots are bought, permissions sought, and contemporary villas are built in the style of the local vernacular. Some of the work being done in that mode is excellent. But a historic property offers something a new build cannot. The proportions are already settled, the quirks have earned their place, and the house has decades of family life behind it.

Our task in this Greek island interior design project on Serifos was to honour what was there, repair what time had worn, and add a contemporary layer without overwhelming the original. The tiled floors in the main house, laid in the 1950s, were restored and kept. They are the heart of the project, and everything that followed was specified to sit comfortably alongside them.

Authentic Mediterranean Style: A House Unmistakably Greek, and Unmistakably Theirs

The brief was warm and specific, and refreshingly free of cliche. No cobalt shutters for the sake of cobalt shutters. The clients wanted a house that would gather their family in for long lunches and longer evenings, and that would still feel like itself in the quieter months.

The 1950s floor tiles set the register, and we worked outward from there. Soft, chalky wall tones. Woven rush, washed linen, timbers worn by salt and time. Almost every piece of furniture is vintage, sourced patiently in Athens, which is one of the real pleasures of working on overseas property renovations in Greece. The dealers and flea markets there reward time and a good eye, and we came back from each trip with another considered piece for the house.

Tiles and lighting we specified in the UK and shipped over. Both were chosen with restraint, because Mediterranean light is strong and consistent, and the interiors needed to support it rather than compete with it.

Remote Project Management: Working Across Two Countries, and One Island

Designing a house thousands of miles from the studio is a logistical project as much as a creative one. What should be made or sourced locally, what should travel, and how every decision will hold up to heat, salt, and the busy use of a much-loved family house.

We worked closely with Greek contractors on the ground, and the conversations we had with them were, in essence, the same conversations we have with the craftspeople we work with in London or Kenya. Material, proportion, and a shared sense that the small decisions are the ones that make the most difference.

What Our Serifos Renovation Taught Us

Three things, in particular, have stayed with us:

• Patience in Restoration: That renovation on a Greek island is a different discipline from new-build design, and one that asks for a different kind of patience. You cannot fully specify a house you have not yet uncovered. The best decisions are made on site, in response to what the building reveals as work progresses.

• A Universal Design Vocabulary: That working in Greece, as in Kenya, reminds you how universal the good conversations are. The same shared vocabulary of material, proportion, and considered detail applies wherever you go.

• Informing Future Builds: And that the lessons of restoration carry across to new-build work too. A new house on a Greek island still has to answer to the same climate, the same light, and the same vernacular tradition. Restoration teaches you, in detail, what those answers look like.

Designing Homes Abroad with Howark

Howark Design is a London-based interior design studio working on residential and hospitality projects across the UK, Europe, and further afield. Whether you are restoring a historic property or building a new home overseas, we would be glad to talk.