A Destination for Creative Minds
Some houses reveal their character over time. Others make it quietly clear why they exist. Keras Cliff House belongs to the latter. Designed with a strong relationship to landscape, light, and lived experience, the house was recently recognised with a Big SEE Architecture Award, an international distinction celebrating architectural excellence across Central and Southeastern Europe.
While the award acknowledges the clarity of its design, what has been equally telling is how the house has been used since opening. In its first season, Keras Cliff House has attracted guests for whom place matters deeply — creative professionals, retreat hosts, and teams seeking privacy, focus, and an environment that supports meaningful work as much as rest.
Distinguished Guests, Shared Values
While many guests value anonymity, some have chosen to share their experience publicly — not as endorsements, but as reflections. Their words speak less about luxury and more about the rare alignment between place, purpose, and time.
The testimonials featured alongside this text come from individuals whose professional lives revolve around storytelling, imagination, and precision. Their experiences at Keras highlight something essential: that meaningful environments do not impose themselves. They listen, respond, and adapt.
Jonas Saul – Author of more than fifty novels, retreat coordinator, editor, and producer, with nearly three million books sold
Keras Cliff House was an absolute dream setting for a writing retreat — inspiring, restorative, and quietly magnificent.
The setting alone — perched above the Libyan Sea — creates an immediate sense of calm and focus, but it’s the combination of privacy, thoughtful design, and understated luxury that truly makes the difference.
Every space felt intentional: perfect for deep focus, reflective walks, intimate group discussions, and moments of solitude when the work demanded it.
The luxurious amenities balanced the intensity of writing days with true indulgence, making it easy to recharge both mind and body.
I fell in love with this place, and I know, without a doubt, that the writers who join me here will feel the same way.
Keras isn’t just a destination. It’s a rare place that truly supports creative work, and I can’t wait to return for future retreats.
A House That Attracts Work — and Stillness
During its first season, Keras Cliff House has hosted private retreats for international tech companies seeking distance from noise and routine, photoshoots for globally recognised furniture brands drawn to its sculptural lines and natural light, and creative professionals in search of uninterrupted space. What unites these diverse uses is not visibility, but discretion. The house offers privacy not as a feature, but as a condition.
This balance — between architectural presence and restraint — is what allows different forms of work to unfold naturally. Long dining tables become places for conversation and collaboration. Terraces turn into stages for reflection. Interiors offer both openness and retreat. Nothing competes for attention; everything supports it.
Aslıhan Ünaldı – Award-winning filmmaker & Professor at New York University, Graduate Film Department
Keras Cliff House is very much a place that feels as if it exists in its own cinematic universe. Much like the iconic villa in Godard’s Contempt, on another Mediterranean island, Capri, it seems less like a location than a presence, waiting for a story to unfold around it.
It is a special place where striking architecture meets nature, history, and mythology going back millennia. The eye meets nothing but olive groves and the piercing blue of the Aegean Sea. I felt an almost constant urge to sit down and write while I was there, something about the space nourishes the mind and soul, inspires introspection, and rejuvenates the senses. Keras is a place where the ancient muses feel close by, inviting one to listen and to meditate.
This time, however, my reason for being there was different. I was traveling with my family, my six-month-old daughter, my husband, and my parents. That brought another kind of fulfillment and a different kind of magic. We could not have chosen a more meaningful place to unite as a family and to introduce a new being to the sea and the sun. It felt like the beginning of a new family ritual.
Being there also allowed us to be outside with our daughter at a moment when New York had already begun to slip into its long season of cold and darkness. That felt both like a gift and a luxury.
We are deeply grateful to Patrick for creating such an extraordinary space and experience, and to Serhat and Hamza for making our stay so seamless and warm, and for welcoming us so generously. We cannot wait to return to Crete and to Keras, and who knows, perhaps next time to write a script or even to make a film.
Beyond the Notion of Hospitality
Keras Cliff House sits at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and use. It is equally suited to solitude and gathering, to creative intensity and family life. That duality is not accidental; it is the result of careful design and a clear philosophy of hosting.
As the house continues to welcome guests from different disciplines and backgrounds, one thing remains constant: Keras does not seek attention. It attracts those who recognise the value of space, silence, community, celebration, and intention — and who understand that the most lasting experiences often unfold away from it all.