The building were Yialos Ios Hotel is now based was built in the Interwar period by a wealthy family of Greek-Egyptian immigrants. The estate hosted stables and a charming traditional watermill, and the original purpose of the building was a cheese factory.
After the Second World War, the building was expanded with the addition of an extra floor, in the characteristic Santorinian domed architecture that strengthens a building’s earthquake resistance.
Soon after that, the building was repurposed and operated as a vision-glass frame manufacturer. Here, a lot of women and children of the day found employment, and it was here where my father and his two sisters were occupied till the early sixties, when the factory seized its operation.