Five Star Greece offers a unique personal service dedicated to locating the perfect Greek villa  rental or yacht that meets your every need.  Serving as a personal ‘matchmaker’, Five Star Greece makes it easy for their clients to find the luxurious holiday home of their dreams. 
 
Five Star Greece exudes exclusivity – villa details are not listed online, and instead directors Ileana von Hirsch and Evi Aidonopoulou work on a consultation basis only and provide an extremely high level of personal attention to turn your wishes into reality.  Clients are invited to complete a detailed and specially designed form, outlining every detail of their ideal holiday – Five Star Greece will then match the guest to a selection of villas from their impressive portfolio, before refining the search according to feedback, resulting in the perfect villa to match your needs.  Each villa (many of them not available on the open market) has been carefully and personally inspected to ensure high standards of privacy, security, first class amenities and local character.  In addition to villa rentals, Five Star Greece can also organise private yacht charters and help assist with property sales.  No matter the size of your party or the reason for your visit, Five Star Greece will ensure a stay to remember. 
 
A Q&A with Five Star Greece
 
A truly unique company, Five Star Greece offers a highly exclusive and exciting service for those seeking a stay with a difference.  The Luxury Travel Guide spoke with Ileana von Hirsch, Director of Five Star Greece, to find out more about the history of this bespoke service, what guests can expect from the process and the elite benefits of choosing Five Star Greece. 
 
Tell us a little about yourself and your background
 
I am half Greek, from one of the older (and poorer) Greek shipping families.  With my three sisters, I inherited a large family summer property on the island of Ithaca in the 1990s.  We soon realised that we had to rent it out if we were to keep it going; it is over 400 acres, has a marina, a wooden yacht, speedboats, beach, several houses, olive groves,  an army of staff and a very high maintenance donkey, who all needed to be paid for.  Back then, I started looking for a good agent who could represent the house, but in those days, there was only really one agent to go to, who sent me a form asking if we had an electric barbecue – well, we didn’t, we had three village lads to turn a spit, but there wasn’t a field for entering ‘three village lads’, so they turned us down – to cut a long story short, I had to start my own agency.
 
I had two strokes of luck: the first was running into an old family friend, Evi Aidonopoulou, who had the best social connections in Athens, a deep knowledge of the beautiful parts of Greece and an immaculate eye for quality.  She co-founded Five Star Greece with me.  The other stroke of luck was that one of the first clients at Skinos was Madonna, which really helped launch Five Star Greece; back in 1997, no self-respecting Greek ever rented their house out, it just wasn’t done.  Evi and I were able to approach people with wonderful homes and say, “it goes without saying that you don’t rent your house out, but IF Madonna wanted to spend two weeks next summer in your house, you wouldn’t say no, would you?” And after that, they would think about it.  One of our next clients was Tom Hanks, and then the ball really started rolling.  Now of course, renting a grand home out is totally acceptable and all sorts of other companies have jumped on the bandwagon, but I am proud to say that we were the original pioneers in bringing these kind of homes to the market, and still the best.
 
How many villas are currently in your portfolio, and do you select which villas to work with?
 
We must have visited over 300 villas; we are obsessive villa collectors – anything that has charm, a bit of magic, a great location, something unusual or of quality, something that either Evi or I fall in love with, we try to add to our collection.  Evi and I have different tastes; she goes for cosy, artistic and picturesque, while I am a bit of a sucker for super- modern cool minimalism.  We always agree though about whether something is right for Five Star Greece clients or not.
 
In effect, we work with about 120 villas.  We have to know who would like the house before we take it on – if we can’t imagine one of our clients there, we don’t take it.  We have turned down some huge and expensive properties as we simply don’t know who we could rent them out to – perhaps a question of décor or location.  Sometimes a property is too widely marketed and it doesn’t interest us to have something that everyone else has as well – we are a small company, so we have to specialise in a niche area rather than cover everything, and our niche is the upper end of the market, so larger houses which start at around 7,000 euros per week in high season, and go up to as expensive as anything else in the world.  The highlight of my year is the twice or three times yearly villa inspection trips I make, where I see  Greece through new eyes each time,  discover a new island or location, and fall in love with the country all over again. 
 
Why don’t you advertise each villa on the website?
 
This goes back to the days before it became socially acceptable to rent out your house ; in order to persuade villa owners that it was safe to rent their villa, we had to promise them that we would not show their villas on a website and meet security and discretional concerns.  Now things are much more open, but a good proportion of our prestige houses have owners who don’t want to run commercial enterprises and only allow us to represent their houses on condition that we protect their privacy.  Apart from anything else, the air of mystery that we created (quite unintentionally!) is now such a deep part of our brand and identity that even though our webmaster in charge of SEO despairs of us, we don’t really want to change!
 
Who is the typical Five Star Greece customer?
 
I suppose our typical client is someone who does not want to search on the internet and book on-line! Budgets vary enormously, but what all our clients have in common, whether they are nice English families on their school holidays wanting a shady garden and pool, a group of 30-year old couples from the US wanting to party, Australians tracing their roots, South American extended families wanting to see Greece, family and friends celebrating a special occasion,  or groups panning on chartering a yacht, is that they want some real guidance.  Greek island are very varied things, not all are suitable for everyone.  Not everything you see online is what it really is…
 
 Our clients don’t want to risk their precious holiday by making a mistake, and want someone they can trust to understand what they want, who knows each house and island, and will give them the common sense advice that a really good friend who knows them and knows Greece would give them. 
 
What can guests expect from a Five Star Greece experience?
 
The most important thing is that guests can expect what we have promised them! It sounds obvious, but this is the main job of any villa agent, and the hardest one of all. 
 
Every villa or yacht is different, every island offers a different kind of experience, so we do the opposite of the standardised experience – there is no Five Star Greece Experience as such! There is only the best possible way for any particular client to enjoy the Greece of his choice in the budget that he has.  We design the experience that guests want to have, and then make sure we deliver it.  It could be a unique, grand style luxury stay with helicopters, launches moored below, dedicated concierge, dive Butlers and chefs, a schooner to sail through the Dodecanese, or a picturesque Cycladic beach house with Mrs Katerina who has bad legs, whose son-in-law drives her on the back of his motorbike from the village to come and cook fantastic home-made island food on request, and who greets repeat guests with hugs and kisses and real tears of joy every summer.  Choose your Greece!
 
Why did you choose to offer yacht rental alongside villa rentals?
 
For most summer visitors, Greece is about the sea – to have a villa on a beach, to swim in clear rock-pools, to sail, paddle, surf, ski or snorkel, to see it sparkle, feel the silky water, smell  the sea breeze,  taste  the salt… you can’t get much closer to it than having a boat with which to accessorise your villa.  Your captain can to take you to waterfront tavernas, nearby islets, remote bays and nearby islands, or just for a sail to cool off on a hot afternoon.  This is especially true in calm water areas like the Ionian, the Sporades or the Argo-Saronic; the Cyclades are usually very windy in summer, so boating is a bit hit and miss there!
 
Some clients have only got a short vacation, and want to see as much as possible.  If budget is no object, then a large luxury yacht that can cruise in all weathers and cover large distances is often a better solution than a villa, and a well-designed itinerary will give an amazingly varied experience of Greece.  Luxury yachts are also a great way to keep children entertained! Greeks adore children, and with the yacht water toys and young and sporty crews, children really have a fantastic time.
 
Tell us about your yacht partners and what they can offer to Five Star Greece guests
 
For larger yachts and charters of at least a week, we use only Greek-based, fully crewed yachts – they are available in Greece and don’t have to be brought over from the western Mediterranean, the captains have great local expertise, and as they only do one season rather than also doing a Caribbean season in winter, the wear and tear on boat and crew is a little less.  We work exclusively with one main central agent who has great control over their fleet and in- depth knowledge, and in return, we get 100% reliable, detailed information about the state of each yacht, each crew member, and other details which, during a cruise, can become very important.  We don’t charter out bareboat or flotilla yachts, so these Greek water charters are for people with at least 30,000 euros per week to spend.  We will design a rough itinerary to help a guest decide whether to charter a yacht, and once the yacht has been chosen (depending on the speed, size and the guests’ wishes) we and the captain design a much more detailed itinerary.  For smaller boats to add to a villa, or to take as day charters, we work with local partners who can react to local weather and offer better value and flexibility.
 
What is your process for helping your clients purchase a home in Greece?
 
Whether you are finding someone a property to buy or to rent, the basic process is the same; understand what the client really wants (which sometimes only becomes clear after  some time has passed) and then look for it with their best interest entirely in mind.  People looking for a property in Greece usually fall into one of two categories – someone who has stayed in a rental villa perhaps more than once, has fallen in love with Greece or an island, and wants to buy something for himself, but is not in a hurry and will look till he finds his dream house.  Then there are those who see Greece as a market that is at or near the bottom, and want to buy something with a view to it increasing its capital value, while providing a solid rental income in the meantime. 
 
We offer objective advice on the rentability of a prospective house, such as the pros and cons of the island or location, market forecasts and the price.  We also enter into negotiations on behalf of the buyer, and hold his hand through the whole process.  We have a whole network of experts to bring into the game – surveyors, architects, lawyers, designers, landscape designers etc.
 
Which of the Greek islands is your favourite and why?
 
Such a difficult question! Each island has its charm, but my personal favourites are Serifos and Milos in the Cyclades and Ithaca in the Ionian, as all are small and under-developed islands that not many people go to.  Serifos has all the natural glamour that the Cyclades offer – picturesque villages, windmills, and the quintessential, iconic Cycladic landscape, whilst Milos has beaches to die for, uniquely picturesque villages, and a beautiful landscape that ranges from bone-white moonscapes to cliffs of all the colours of the rainbow.  Ithaca has a dreamy magic and mystery of its own, and possibly the most beautiful coastline of all; gin-clear waters, wild mountains, cute fishing villages,   and always the thought “Could THIS be the site of Ulysses palace, is HERE where Telemachus set sail from?”
 
Tell us about your plans for the future of Five Star Greece
 
The most exciting and imminent development is that Five Star Greece has co-founded a fabulous new association of top villa rental companies from all over the world – UltraVilla will be launching this May and it will be a directory of very carefully curated villa companies chosen on a simple criterion – would  we refer our valued clients to this villa company ?  Sneak previews of our site has led some journalists to call UltraVilla the “Relais  & Chateaux” of the villa world already, which is exactly what we aim to be, so we are very excited about this.  Look out for companies displaying the UltraVilla logo!
 
Website: http://www.fivestargreece.com/
Email: ileana@fivestargreece.com
Tel: 0044 208 422 4885
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FiveStarGreece/timeline?ref=page_internal
Blog: http://www.fivestargreece.com/blog/

Share this article: