Mansions of Hydra

The first area inhabited in Hydra was in the 15th century its area Kiafas. The site provided security, a nature reserve for defense, and access to pastures and crops.

The creation of monastery of the Assumption of the Virgin (17th century) and the employment of the inhabitants by the sea, recommended that the city gradually expand amphitheatrically to the port and embrace it.

On the east side of the port, windmills were built and important mansions of the time were gathered in a prominent position. The houses of the prostitutes and the shipowners construction did not differ much from the popular houses of the settlement. Most of them are built on a rock, with thick stone walls that the island had in abundance, and with four-pitched roofs with tiles. with cisterns in the basements to collect rainwater, to drink it, to love and water the gardens. But what differed was size.

And while the simple houses were built mainly by the owners themselves, for mansions Architects and masons from other areas were recruited. These houses (cherries) were made of hewn stone and were characterized by their fortified form and their 2-3 to 4 floors. In fact, in order to soften its volume, they painted a white margin with lime around the windows, which was curved at the top, imitating the inner arch of the floors. Some of them also had western type arches with covered verandas.

Inside the mansions, arches with oriental and western influences, embossed marble fountains, cistern openings, ornate ceilings painted with geometric and floral designs or wooden baklava ceilings and geometric compositions of marble and tiled floors add a touch of flooring.

With regard to furniture the shipowners brought from their voyages everything that could give their home comfort, beauty and prestige. Thus, in many houses we see coexisting in different spaces, on one side Venetian dining rooms with porcelain tableware and on the other oriental entities with low sofas, pillows and carpets.

On the east side of the port impresses the imposing mansion of Lazaros Tsamados, the current School of Merchant Mariners, which keeps alive the naval tradition of Hydra, founded in 1734, one of the first schools in the world.

West the house of Lazaros Koundouriotis, which today functions as a branch of the National Historical Museum, built in a P-shape, painted with natural ocher and furnished with the "good being" where the owner of the mansion spent most of his time.

On the west side of the port is mansion of Francis Voulgaris, one of the important mansions of the 1800s with oriental elements, such as the wood-carved ceilings in the Ottoman Rococo style and which now houses the hotel Hydrea Exclusive Hospitality.

Next to him, he stands up the most impressive mansion of Hydra, the four-storey mansion of Tombazis in Italian style, built by Manolis Tombazis and his wife Xanthi Sachini and which has been owned since 1936 in School of Fine Arts and functions as its annex.

Behind the mansions of Voulgaris and Tombazis, on the hill with a fortified character among the pines and amazing views, stands the mansion of Georgios Koundouriotis, one of the largest shipowners of Hydra and an active politician during the Revolution, which today functions as a Museum of the modern history of Hydra.

Other important mansions of Hydra are his VotsiOf EconomouOf BoudouriOf GorogianniOf KrieziOf GikaOf Pauri, and its end Coconut and Beauty.