Dexamenes was once an abandoned wine factory on the Peloponnesian coastline. Nikos Karaflos grew up nearby and had known the building since childhood, when it was already a landmark of the region’s past. Rather than replace it, he chose to preserve its history and allow the architecture to tell the story.
High in the fir forests of Arcadia stands a former mountain sanatorium that remained abandoned for decades before Stratis Batagias began imagining what it could become.
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“I’m a local. I was born and raised in this region and I always knew the history of this place. It was a landmark for the area. When my family bought the abandoned winery, I felt it was my responsibility to preserve the buildings and let them tell their story rather than replace them.”
Equally important was the land itself. The forest had grown around the building during its eighty years of abandonment, wrapping it in branches and roots. Stratis refused to cut a single tree. Today the rooms sit close to the trunks, as if the forest is embracing the walls. Manna exists because he wanted to create a place where guests could feel the stillness he felt as a child. A place where nature is part of the architecture and where luxury is measured by clarity, quiet and belonging.
Equally important was the land itself. The forest had grown around the building during its eighty years of abandonment, wrapping it in branches and roots. Stratis refused to cut a single tree. Today the rooms sit close to the trunks, as if the forest is embracing the walls. Manna exists because he wanted to create a place where guests could feel the stillness he felt as a child. A place where nature is part of the architecture and where luxury is measured by clarity, quiet and belonging.
Nikos’s connection to the Peloponnesian coast runs deeper than memory, shaped by the summers he spent near the shoreline watching the wine factory slowly fade into silence. When he returned as an adult, the light on the sea, the salt in the air and the stillness surrounding the abandoned tanks felt strangely familiar, as if the building had simply been waiting for someone who understood it. Restoring Dexamenes became less about creating a hotel and more about protecting the spirit of the place, allowing the concrete tanks, the long industrial lines and the rhythm of the coast to remain visible. The project became a quiet return to the landscape that had always stayed with him, where architecture, history and the presence of the sea continue to shape the calm atmosphere that defines this remote stretch of shoreline.
