THE MAGIC OF SIFNOS

The award-winning photographer Marina Vernicos invites HELLO! into her stunning villa on the Greek island

- NANÁ BOTTAZZI

Marina Vernicos’s first name was an apt choice for the scion of a shipping dynasty that has sailed the world for six generations. And just as fitting is her gorgeous home on Sifnos island, surrounded by the infinite blue of the Aegean Sea.

“It captures everything I love about the island,” Marina says of the villa, where she lives with her husband, the financier Miltos Kambourides, and their three children. Situated right on the beach, their home was designed to evoke “that feeling of freedom, serenity and depth that the sea gives”, she tells us.

Stroll through the grounds and you find yourself in the quiet fishing village of Vathi; from there, stone paths wind through olive groves and across terraced hills topped by white churches. Marina, an award-winning photographer, loves to capture it all in images suffused with light. She has travelled the globe, but Sifnos, she says, always draws her back. “Sifnos is my emotional anchor. It’s not only where my family comes from, it’s where my heart returns, time and time again,” she says.

Marina, describe your background to us...

“I was born and raised in Athens, but my great-grandfather was from Sifnos and we spent every summer here while I was growing up. It’s where I feel most connected to my heritage.

“My father, George, is the president of Vernicos Yachts and also created the Verina Hotels complex on the island. Although he and my mother, Demi Vezirouli, divorced when I was three, they've stayed close friends and she’s very much involved in the family business.”

Can you tell us about your own children?