All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Designer John Stefanidis has created a home with a mythic quality on the Greek island of Patmos

To celebrate the publication of his new book, John Stefanidis: A Designer's Eye, House & Garden heads to Patmos to reshoot the interior that was the genesis of it all, the home he created with his late partner, the artists Teddy Millington Drake
This room was once Teddy Millington Drake's studio is now a bedroom. The JS fourposter bed of wood painted red. The oil...
This room was once Teddy Millington Drake's studio, is now a bedroom. The JS four-poster bed of wood painted red. The oil paintings in ochre, orange, and mastic brown are a salute to the previous occupant.Davide Lovatti

They arrived ‘in an old boat laden with animals,’ at the end of a tour of the eastern Mediterranean. Landing at noon, ‘a haunted hour,’ they climbed the steep road from the harbour on foot. Crowning the island, its dark grey crenellated walls as imposing as the helmet of a knight, is the 11th-century monastery of Saint-John the Theologian, under which the houses of the mediaeval town of Chora are scattered over the hillside like sugar cubes. When they arrived, the town was almost abandoned, many of the properties derelict behind crumbling walls. By the end of that first summer they had bought a 16th-century farmhouse for £1000. On three levels, the property descended through terraced gardens to fields enclosed by neglected stone walls. The monastery towered behind, and in front was the, ‘old Testament view across the dry fields to the eighteenth-century hermitage of the Prophet Elijah.’

The subject of the triptych by Teddy Millington-Drake is antique myths — the words depicted are Psyche, Eros and Love, Zeus, and Aphrodite, whose favourite island was Cyprus. Zephyros, god of the west wind, is often depicted as a handsome winged youth. The jumbo-sized island sofa was made for the room. On top of the bookcases on either side are sculptures by Gordon Baldwin and two watercolors — an abstract painting on the right and one of Easter Island statues on the left. The cushions of geometric design were woven in Africa. The simplest of trestle tables was made on the island. The chair is early-eighteenth-century Anglo Indian in ebony with a cane seat.

The windows above the doors, typical of Patmos, give light to the rooms beyond.

The walls were painted by Millington-Drake immediately after the house was bought, with images of the sun and moon. A Buddhist mantra takes up the wall above the drinks cabinet.

Davide Lovatti

‘Everywhere is the sea – steel blue, azure, turquoise, deepest sapphire, depending on the direction of the wind,’ writes John in his book An Island Sanctuary. ‘Goats graze on the hillsides, and in the evening the stillness is broken by the sound of their bells. The spiritual world of Byzantium is all around you. Church bells ring and the hum of early Christian chants, part of the Orthodox liturgy, float across the fields, even as the ancient gods, always present in Greece, hover above you – Elijah’s chapel is, after all, built on the site of a temple to Apollo. In the olive groves at the foot of the garden, Julian the Apostate still murmurs admonishments to return to the old ways.’

The house, abandoned for 25 years, had ‘sound, thick walls, old carved doors, and bleached wood floors. There were oil lamps for light, and rainwater was collected in cisterns.’ John returned to Patmos that winter, persuading a plumber and an electrician to travel from the Greek mainland with him. With the help of a local builder and carpenter he began to restore the house.

‘I was careful to leave as much as was possible of the old existing vernacular architecture intact. Untrained but curious and observant, I found that my years in Italy had sharpened and refined my aesthetic. New furniture was made on the island to complement traditional antiques, introducing traditional Ottoman themes that had once been indigenous to the Dodecanese. The restoration of the house in Patmos and the fortuitous results gave me confidence. I decided to pursue a career in design.’

The Plumbago Terrace is overhung by olive trees and majestic cypresses. The herb garden opposite the terrace has raised beds for parsley, mint, coriander, thyme, and arugula. Lemon verbena and pots of white agapanthus and trailing pelargonium cascade in the shade of the olive trees.

John eventually rebuilt and modernised ten houses on the island. Always working with local builders, he developed a style that was delicately reverential to the past but shot through with elements of striking modernity. He insisted that the fundamental character of the houses was preserved, that whitewashed walls retained their bumps, and woodwork was restored rather than replaced. He helped revive the Patmonian tile industry by using designs made on the island. In the rooms, old kilims from Anatolia lie contentedly alongside bright dhurries newly commissioned from India. An ornate brass and wood chest found in the Hadhramaut sits beneath a large 18th-century Italian mirror. An inlaid ivory Moghul desk is mixed with rare Turkish embroideries and Indian miniatures.

‘What might be called Mediterranean style,’ he says, ‘is in many ways a conceit, given the numerous layers of civilisations, cultures, and influences that contribute to it; conceit that is composed of romanticism, sensuality, and practicality. It is a triumph of common sense. Whitewashed walls reflect light and heat; thick walls render rooms cool; cotton furnishings are fresher to the touch and the eye than wool and velvet. The most valuable gift of the Mediterranean to domestic life is the seamlessness between inside and outside: there is no psychic separation between the two.’

In the parlour a JS-designed kilim in an enlarged Anatolian pattern covers the floor. Two JS Rothschild chairs are covered in loose striped covers. The doors with glazed panels are an architectural motif found throughout the island. On the wall, an eighteenth century Venetian gilt mirror found in Chora) hangs above Moghul inlaid ivory chest sent from India in the 1820s to be Japanned in England — examples of many migratory pieces that link the island to the rest of the world.

The small library at the heart of the first floor is full of books. Indian miniatures line the walls. The central cushion in a tulip design is from Athens.

Teddy's work is still everywhere in evidence. From an anteroom painted with images of the sun and the moon, to a triptych of abstract works depicting the words Psyche, Eros and Zeus. ‘They demonstrate his superb draughtsmanship,’ says John. ‘The control and flow of line admired by the artist Cy Twombly who came to Patmos in the early 1960s with Nicola Del Roscio.’ In the 1980s they bought an adjoining house, where Teddy made a studio to paint. A stream of guests would arrive every summer. ‘We watched the island begin to change, in part the result of our presence. There had always been cruise ships, but people soon began to come on yachts.’

John and Teddy never lived together, ‘except on our travels or in Patmos. The house was our shared creation. We lived in our separate bedrooms, just the two of us, for a decade or more, our many guests sharing a guesthouse at a convenient distance.’

Later, the men would be estranged for eight years. ‘I was in a San Francisco hotel when Teddy’s nephew, who found antiques for my projects, came to my room to say that Teddy was in the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London and very much wanted to see me. Teddy said he did not want to take disagreements to the grave. As I tidied his hospital room, he said it was nice to have the boss back – cheeky! I had missed his droll and quirky mind. For the next three months, we were close again.’

Teddy Millington Drake made a final journey to Patmos before he died of AIDS in September 1994. In the garden of the house John built a whitewashed mausoleum, inscribed with XAIRE (hail and goodbye in ancient Greek).

In the almost 20 years since Teddy’s death, John has continued to embellish and nourish the house and its garden. Cypress, citrus and pomegranate trees, rosemary, verbena, oregano, basil, and bay flourish. ‘There is the sound of birdsong, the fluttering of dove wings and swallows nesting. Doors and windows left ajar with the scent of jasmine, lemon, and orange blossom wafting from the terraces that descend steeply to the garden rooms.’

John believes that a house lived in for decades by the same person, ‘emanates an atmosphere of old loves, lost friends, past thoughts, agreements and disagreements, happiness and misery.’ For him, sophistication and style are not analogous to happiness, ‘which springs rather from comfort, good manners, colours that please the eye, works of art, flowers, and cherished objects. A vista from room to room. These are gifts that enhance the world you have created.’

‘There comes a time in life when you assess the friendships that have given you the most pleasure, amusement, and affection. The same can be said of a place or a house. In my lifetime, it is a house and a garden on the island of Patmos, Greece, that have nurtured the soul.’

John Stefanidis: A Designer's Eye (Rizzoli) is available to buy now