Our House
Where a simmering spirit of revolution lives on
Arta sits mere steps from the famed Australian House, the 1950s-1960s home of expatriate writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston and a gathering point for Beat poets Jeffrey Corso, Harry Norse and Alan Ginsberg as well as musician Leonard Cohen. But Hydra’s alternative spirit did not begin with them. Independent attitudes have always run deep on this little island, its residents instrumental in the Greek War of Independence.
Along the way, Arta has retained its own quietly defiant attitude expressed by the house’s oddly perpendicular setting in an otherwise quaint little lane. Similarly, its steadfast refusal to grow above a single story when all of its neighbors built skyward makes Arta an architectural rarity and ensures that it remains an authentic and memorable retreat on a charmingly human scale.
“I never knew this small could be quite this cool.”Daphne Selle-Cyr, Cellist
