The Property
Our house was built according to the architectural plans of an Italian architect, probably Iannis Chronos, who also designed the “best Corfiot houses at that time”. The original drawings show a lantern tower and a peripheric canopy which were supposed to provide a good ventilation.
The centered design, the regularity of the façade, the division of the different spaces and their generous proportion are typical for the European neoclassical style. It provides comfortable spaces and peace without being pompous.
Villa Kefalomandouko was built in 1850 by one of the sons of Kostas Kondi who was a self-made entrepreneur.
Kostas Kondi was born in 1770 in Delvinio, a greek speaking town close to the Albanian border at that time under the Ottoman domination. He developed a flourishing shipping business while the Venetian economy and political influence was declining in the area of the Adriatic Sea. He got married to a local Corfiot woman, named Monsevinon, from the port of Mandouki in Corfu and he bought an estate in Kefalomantouko (« the head of Mandouki ») and thus settled in Corfu.
His first son Theodoros Kondi set up a brick factory and was a successful construction material provider. He was a main player in the new district of Garitsa, the bay area south of Corfu town. Several bricks of the villa still wear the stamp of his factory
His second son Dimitris Kondi joined his brother’s business after his studies in Paris and married a British woman named Mercy Knocker in 1843. They built the house in 1850 and gave birth to eleven children.
Federikos Kondi, one of their sons inherited the property upon the death of his father. He got married in 1889 with Scottish-born Eliza Edith Allan (1864-1924) in London and they had 3 children : Sybil (1890), Annie Evelyn (1892) and Allan George (1896). They spent their early years growing up at the Villa Kondi, in the idyllic period prior to World War I but moved to Edinburgh in the Allan family after Federikos passed away in 1912.
Then the Estate stayed without continuous occupation and maintenance for decades.
In 1960, Anne Huot de Saint Albin (1930-1983), French mother of the actual owner Christina Bulgaris bought the estate after the tragic death of her young husband Nicolas Bulgaris (1932-1959). She renovated it after she remarried Constantinos Condi (1931-2012), great-grand son of the original owner and they both lived there.
In 2014, Christina Bulgaris and her husband Olivier Roulleau-Gallais, both architects and recently retired moved to Corfu with a cultural project for the house in mind. They started the complete renovation of the house and one of their sons, Nicolas joined them after a year to give them a hand.
The initial cultural project was altered and with the agreement of the owner the house was turned into a guesthouse which now hosts visitors during the summer season and welcomes various venues and events mostly in winter.
