Exotic tropical villa in Mykonos

This beautiful island home was designed by Javier Barba in 2002 in Mykonos, Greece. Mykonos is among the most fabled of all the Greek isles, slap in the middle of the Aegean. Nowhere else, it seems, has the water ever looked this deeply mysterious, not least because it contrasts so inherently with the spotless whitewashed houses that shimmer in the sun at each turning point along the coast. The home was built traditionally as a series of fat white cubes piled one on top of the other, with their windows and doors picked out in vivid colors. Designed with a flat-roof to resist the gale-force winds that hit the island, the home has been painted a perfect, uniform white for the very good reason that it deflects the scorching rays of the sun.

For this stunning villa on Mykonos, Barba was allowed to design as he wished on this large plot of land outside a village with unobstructed views over a private beach toward the sea. Barba designed the home to be one with the landscape, using locally sourced materials to do so. To break up some of the starkness of the whitewalls, plain stones were used on the exterior facade of the home. The client is a businessman based in Athens who wished to have a home that he and his family could use as a quiet haven, not only during the summer months but for sporadic breaks throughout the year. The owner was looking for sophisticated simplicity where he could both unwind and entertain large numbers of friends with the least amount of fuss. It was just as important to design the interiors as it was the exteriors. The clients enjoy entertaining by having long lunches with lots of friends, so a whole outdoor living area was built with a kitchen, a barbecue, a bar and plenty of space for guests to sit around or sunbathe. Photos: Panagiotis Fotiadis

This staircase leads from the first floor down to the second floor bedrooms, which Barba has modeled after Mykonos’s ancient architecture.