Our Vision

The island Ios is located in the middle of one of the most successful tourist areas on earth, right in-between two world class destinations, Mykonos and Santorini. In order to preserve its natural beauty and protect it from the environmental degradation that usually follows mass tourism, we refused to develop the land for a decade as we worked out how best to do it responsibly. Believing that in the battle between man and nature there is no victor, we decided to break away from the widely followed principle of over-building and pursued a different route by creating LUXURIOS and IOS ETERNAL, a unique tourism and conservation project that will develop only 1% of our land and leave 99% of it unbuilt. Armed by a sense of respect and responsibility for the land we own, our mission is to develop extremely low density hotel accommodations to safeguard the character of the environment while ensuring that the project is financially viable to sustain its upkeep for many years to come.

Believing that we do not have to damage the earth to accomplish our dreams, our aim is to be able to offer for future generations a state of the art tourism-conservation project that will deliver to our guests what we consider to be the 5 pillars of a great vacation: Luxury, Privacy, Culture, Environment and Fun. At Calilo, we offer elegant 5 star accommodations in the middle of a 1000-acre plot of land with 6 miles of coastline that all but guaranties absolute privacy to those who need it. Our dream is to allow our guests to experience the ultimate luxury: being able to just be alone, or with their loved ones, in a vast private area where they can swim, do water sports, walk in one of our numerous seaside or island trails scattered throughout our property, or just take in the amazing views and relax in one of our numerous cabanas or natural baths overlooking one of the best beaches in the Mediterranean.

All this, while only 25 minutes away by car or by boat, our guests can enjoy the nightlife of one of the most vibrant party towns in Greece which, along with Ibiza and Crete, was created in the spirit of love and fun by the hippies in the seventies. If our guests are inclined to touch the very beginnings of Civilization, by going 2 miles further down the road, they can visit one of oldest villages in the world, Skarkos. It is a stunning cultural jem created apr. 5.000 years ago by people who are considered to be the first inhabitants of Ios and among the earliest settlers of Europe.

Our team – your summer family – intends to redefine the meaning of luxury in hospitality to an experience where we give our guests what is really worthwhile: personal freedom, warmth, joy, unrivaled privacy, pathos and the creation of beautiful emotions. For us, this is true luxury. Like the hot sun that gives life to the ancient olive trees on the island, we aim to enliven the people that stay with us – inspiring new levels of creativity and passion in everyone we are lucky enough to meet. We intend to celebrate the uniqueness of each of our guests and help them embrace the joy that flows abundantly in our venues while protecting and enhancing the island’s precious natural environment and fun-loving, creative spirit.

LUXURY, PRIVACY, CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT, FUN.

It would take a miracle to bring all that to one place.

Well, that place exists. CALILO. In IOS!

As a new generation of Greeks reclaim their heritage, they’re looking past overtouristed islands like Mykonos to quiet stunners such as Ios island. Reachable only by boat this 42-square-mile island in the Cyclades archipelago with its 32 sand beaches, outstands in beauty and authenticity.In the only town on the island, Chora (a hippie heaven during the 1970s), guests stay in laid-back lodgings ranging from the chic Agalia Suites, a 16-suites and villas boutique hotel that opened its doors in the summer of 2014, to family-run guesthouses on narrow stone walkways. Ios’s oldest archaeological site, Skarkos, dates from the third millennium B.C., and the 16th-century monastery of Pyrgos sits below the island’s highest peak. Dirt tracks lead to more than two dozen pristine beaches, which veteran philhellenes call some of the finest strands in the Aegean islands.
”We saw what happened to other Greek islands transformed by overdevelopment. We’re determined to save Ios from that fate,” says Vassiliki Petridou, president of Luxurios Island Experience, a local eco-resort company.

Construction

During the construction process all the materials we use, except wood, iron, glass and cement and some of the marbles, are produced locally. The uniqueness of this is that our venues are built out of materials that are extracted from the ground of the actual building site and we are fortunate that some of our sites are significant stone- marble quarries offering distinctively different color and quality of marble and even stone-granite.Local craftsmen manually cut and carve the extracted stones, while the lower quality ones are grinded by a stone-processing machine to produce sand, gravel and plaster tobe used as the building/finishing materials such as concrete, plaster, etc. They then lay by hand and construct each one of the venues, some requiring millions of the crafted stones, employing painstaking but authentic and traditional building techniques.The swimming pools, patios and open ground surfaces are also constructed in the same way by adding thousand of marble pieces crafted by hand and put together similar to a giant puzzle aimed to create a unique finished product in yet another painstaking building process.

The Story

LuxurIOS is a Greek owned tourism project that develops, owns and operates hotels, beach estates, villas, lounges and organizes authentic life experiences in the island of Ios. This project was born out of love for our country with a vision to promote sustainable tourism in Greece and contribute our mental, emotional and financial resources to protect and promote the cultural and natural heritage of Ios. Following a long effort, a significant amount of land was purchased in the island creating one of the largest private holdings of still unspoiled beach front land in the Mediterranean. Our aim is to use a very low-impact, environmentally sensible approach to sustainably develop only a very small portion of the land that we own leaving 95% of it undeveloped, so that Ios’ natural beauty, unspoiled beaches, sense of place and Greek island cultural heritage continues to thrive for future generations of locals and visitors alike.
Only a small collection of villas, lounges and boutique hotels will be developed based upon environmentally-friendly design and construction, working closely with the local community thus providing direct economic benefits through responsible tourism development. An integral part of the project is the offering of authentic island life experiences designed to expose guests to IOS’s incredible beaches, stunning landscapes and local products in privacy, luxury and comfort.