Mythic Villa

The estate divides as you need it. Taken in full it runs to six bedrooms for twelve, or it splits into Gaia, the four-bedroom main house, and Greenstone, a two-bedroom annexe, each with its own entrance. Two infinity pools, a jacuzzi and an open-air gym are set among the trees, and the living rooms open straight onto terraces, so the line between inside and out mostly disappears. The language is plain and contemporary: white volumes, stone, pale wood and linen, nothing loud, the view left to do the talking.

The setting

Sifnos is the Cyclades at their most self-possessed, a walking island of footpaths, whitewashed monasteries and a pottery and cooking tradition that Greeks take seriously. This is the island that produced Nikolaos Tselementes, the cook who wrote modern Greece's kitchen into a book, and it still slow-bakes its chickpeas overnight and its lamb in clay. Exambela sits inland among gardens and old estates, a short drive from the lanes of Apollonia and the cliff-hung village of Kastro. It is the quiet, cultivated side of the island rather than the beach strip, which is the point of taking a house here: the food, the light and the silence, with a gate between you and the season.

Why it's in VANE

The villa answer to the Cyclades is usually a white cube with a pool and a rental listing. Mythic earns its place by doing the ordinary things properly: a real setting on real land, architecture that keeps its voice down, and the flexibility to house one couple or three families without feeling like a compound. The caveats are honest ones. This is self-catered privacy, not a resort, so meals, a chef and service are arranged rather than assumed; it sits inland, a drive from the sea; and it is at its best from late spring to early autumn. Come for the olive terraces, the two pools and a whole island of good food at the gate, and it delivers exactly that.

VANE Folio

A longer reading of Mythic Villa: the quiet inland side of Sifnos, the house of stone and water, and an island that does the catering for you.