How the Crazy Idea of Buying a House on a Greek Island Happened

January Re-stack

Lucy Cavendish

I thought you might be thinking about where to go on holiday and Lucy’s place looks fantastic.

It was in June 2019 when I first went to the remote Greek island of Alonissos. It’s a beautiful island in the northern Sporades and it’s half an hour by ferry away from Skopelo, where Mama Mia was filmed. But the main island that people know is Skiathos.

There are so many Greek islands and groups of Greek islands but over my years on the planet I’ve been to many of them. My love affair with Greece started when I was very young. My parents had separated and my mother - being obsessed with the Greek classics - decided to take myself on my three older siblings on a tour of the classical sites.

It was probably a crazy thing to do. It was in the summer so was absolutely baking hot and she booked a tour which was full of old people all of whom had a book called the Blue Guide. My mother didn’t have the guide. All she had was four overheated slightly traumatised children and a tremendous amount of patience.

But what she also possessed was a complete love and passion for Greece. She led us through the Parthenon of Athens. We went to Delphi. We swam in the port of Thessaloniki which was a completely stupid thing to do because it’s not very clean and full of massive ships.

We ended up on the island of Thassos and I existed on cheese and ham toasted sandwiches and coca cola served to me by a very sweet waiter called Vasilis.

I’ve been in a lot of holidays since and visited a lot of countries but nothing affected me as much as that trip to Greece.

So over the years I was drawn back to there.

When I had my own small children - they are now 28, 22,21 and 18 - I would take us to Greece on our annual summer holidays. We went to mainland Greece and many Greek islands – Pazos, Anti Paxos, Corfu, Ithaca, Cephalonia, Zakynthos, Spetses, Hydra, Sifnos, Folegrandps, Crete, Rhodes… The list goes on.

Then one year, as I was looking for yet another island to go to, my husband said, ‘Given the fact we spend every summer in Greece why don’t we just buy a house?’

It seemed to be a completely mad idea. How earth would we afford it? And where would we buy it? But it was a Sunday morning and so I went online and a house on an island I’ve never heard of popped up. That island was Alonissos. The house for sale looked really lovely and there was a name and an English mobile phone number so I texted this man whose name was Chris and said I was interested in his house.

An hour later he rang me. He told me he was an artist and that he and his wife Jane had had this house built on the island but they were selling it because they needed to free up some money. ‘Why don’t you come and stay with us?’ he offered.

A few weeks later in June 2019, my husband and I set off. We flew to Skiathos had some lunch, got on a ferry and two hours later it pulled in at this funny little Greek port and standing there waiting to meet us were Jane and Chris.

I stood there and took it all in - the slightly scrappy port - not pretty in traditional like Skopekos town which is absolutely beautiful - but basic and very very Greek.

We stayed for four days on the island in the studio flat at the bottom of what is now my house – Carob Tree House named after the tree in the garden. Chris took us around the island and we rented a car and somehow looking back on it we did so much in such a little time. Now when I go there, I barely move. I eat, I swim, I dance, I eat, I swim, I talk, I dance. I see friends. I go for a walk. Sometimes I barely move for days. I meditate and I do lots of thinking.

However, when we first went to Alonissos, we wanted to see everything. We went from beach to town to the piano bar to the organic restaurant. On the last night we danced the jitterbug in a bar. We had an absolutely great time.

The day we left we told Chris we would buy the house. We walked down to the port and I burst into tears. ‘We will be very happy here,’ my husband said. I could see our future. We would retire here. I would chill and write and make friends and cook and grow beautiful vegetable garden. My husband would restore pictures and read.

I won’t go into the process of buying a Greek house because that’s another article in itself and it takes forever but I’m a very proactive person. Sometimes to my detriment. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it. I remortgaged my house and by December 2019, just before Brexit, we completed.

Carob Tree House was mine.

Then, of course, the world turned on its axis and everything shut down because of COVID. In fact many things in my life went horribly wrong - my marriage broke down in a shocking fashion, I had invested some money in a portfolio and it went bust and I lost all my life savings, my sister died unexpectedly.

It was a very strange time. The first time I went to the house – in the summer of 2020 - I felt very lost because I was supposed to be there with my husband. But then I sat on my veranda and looked out at the sea and thought of my sister who was never going to be able to do that again. I gave myself a bit of a talking too. I realised how fortunate I was just to be alive to breathe the air and to actually put my body into the water and feel it all over me.

This island and this house has been part of my healing. I’ve had some very strange times there. Sometimes I go there and I don’t speak to anyone for weeks and I have to shake myself out of my hermit-like tendencies and get back to real life. Lots of friends have visited me there. I had three friends get off the ferry and we basically re-enacted Mamma Mia. They came and held me and cooked for me and looked after me and the Greek diet of fresh fish, the local olives, the tomatoes grown next door to my garden and then lemons I get from my own garden - started to do their work.

I began to make some friends. It’s interesting who ends up on islands - it’s an artistic community really and it’s also very bonded with the people who live there. I began to go to new and different places. I’ve seen the MoMo seals that are very rare and are protected on Alonissos. It’s also a centre for diving because there is a very old wreck off the nearby island of Peristera. I go snorkelling and last year I spent a lot of time following an octopus.

The seas are crystal clear. Alonissos is known for being an eco-friendly island and that’s part of what draws people to it.

The truth is I feel very at home here. I can be alone here. I can relax. The only person I need to look after is me. This island has healed me, inspired me and continues to surprise me. I will never tire of it – and I will never know all its secrets and that’s fine by me.

It has a deep place in my heart and soul. The blue of the sky, the crystal-clear sea, the laid back tempo of life and the gentle joys of the island never fail to move and inspire me.

It is on Facebook Carob Tree House rent or people can contact Lucy on 07713 251614 or lucy.cavendish@btinternet.com