If you haven't heard of Karpathos, you're not alone. This remote, rugged and spectacular Greek island lies midway between Crete and Rhodes in the southerly Dodecanese, and is known (if at all) for its traditional villages, fervent folklore, unspoiled beaches and wild pine-clad mountains. There's no mass tourism to speak of, and its 12 settlements are scattered across its long, bony contours in a way that makes them feel like separate worlds. In fact, the whole island feels like a taste of Greece as it used to be: blue-domed belltowers and windmills that still chime and turn, handmade Cycladic costumes (worn unironically), and feast days where - it seems - all 5,000 islanders gather on a rock-top chapel with priest and candles.
Perched on a hilltop overlooking the turquoise east coast, among pine woods and rocky crags, sits Casa Minza. A new-build, four-bedroom villa, it's the passion project of well-travelled British lawyer Nicola who, with absolute dedication, pursued her vision of a Greek island idyll from dream to reality. After pushing through Brexit and Covid to acquire the land, and befriending a local husband-and-wife architect-and-agent team, she learned basic Greek to liaise with builders and planners, then travelled through the Peloponnese sourcing reclaimed materials (including shutters and doors, cupboards and mirrors), and scoured the internet to find beautiful bespoke tiles from a Moroccan craftsman. The result is a spacious, colourful, superbly appointed house - comfortably big enough for one or two families - with lazy indoor-outdoor living, an infinity pool, table tennis, even a climbing wall, all in reach of pristine beaches and a charming seafront village.