Ground floor plan

A very well known story of Halki took place in that building, on 14 May 1893. Some dangerous pirates under the leadership of the fearsome ‘Psiroukis” came to the island in order to take the gold of Yannis Pipinos. They found him, and asked him to give up his gold or they would take his life. He decided to give his gold, and probably that was the end of his business. That money was meant to be given to the captains who operated the sponge caiques as a prepayment, in order to prepare their long trip to North Africa, where they used to collect their precious merchandise. This true story has been turned into a local song, and if you are lucky you may hear it during a local fiesta.

When Yannis Pipinos decided to marry his first daughter Praxithea to George Zervos, a promising young doctor who studied in Munich/Bavaria and the son of a Kalymnian sponge merchant, he turned half the sponge factory to a noble two storey neoclassical style house, for the new couple. At that time, when daughters were getting married they should have at least a house , a “prika” as we call it in Greek. That happened in 1909, as the marble slab which is set in the wall above the main entrance, witnesses. However, this slab is not the original inscription. The original one was painted on the wall above the main entrance of the villa facing the sea, saying “Σήμερον εμού, αύριον ετέρου και ουδέποτε τινός”, which in free translation means “today is mine, tomorrow will be somebody’s else, but it will never belong to anybody ” . Wise words from a wise man. Apparently it seems that it was a kind of fashion to put this inscription on houses at that time, and I have come across it two more times in my life. One of them was at the old family house of my future (at that time) wife, at Kastri Kunourias, in the middle of Peloponnese. Spooky !!!

The young couple stayed at the house after their wedding and Praxithea had most of her 5 children there. It was the time of the First World War. George who was the doctor of the island as well as the mayor for some period, used the second room on the left of the ground floor as a surgery. For hygiene reasons, he turned the floor of the room into concrete, now it has cotto tiles. When the children grew up, the family decided to leave Halki and move to Kalymnos which is a much bigger island and did not suffer from the economic crisis as Halki did at that time.
After their departure, the Italian army used the house as a “caserma” or garrison where the soldiers lived and slept. My grandmother Maria told us: ‘they used the basement bellow the living room as a detention room’. I hope nobody suffered there!
When my grandmother Maria, the first daughter of Praxithea, got engaged in Kalymnos, she wanted to show her “prika” to her future husband who was a Kalymnian and he had never been into Halki. So, while staying in Halki, she sent him the black and white postcard you can see below:

She had written on it: “This is to see our house, and Halki during its glorious era”. I think she was exaggerating a bit, as many houses are in ruined state.
It was only 1995 when Villa Praxithea became property of my brother Jacob and mine, and we decided to restore it and turn it to a traditional tourist accommodation. As we are both engineers, my brother a civil engineer and me an architect, with a Master’s in Conservation of Historic Buildings and Towns (KULeuven Belgium), our main goal was to respect the house , make the minimum of the alterations necessary and maintain its character. The work started in 1997. The house initially had an interior wooden staircase where the bathrooms are, which was transferred outside the building in order to divide it into two separate apartments. The wooden doors and windows were replaced, and the wooden ceilings were restored where it was needed. We hope you like the result and that you will enjoy your staying at the house.
We always keep in our minds that you are a part of the contemporary history of the Villa, and we respect that. We hope you do the same with Villa Praxithea.

“today its yours, tomorrow it will be somebody’s else, but it will never belong to anybody”