A stylish house in Mykonos combining bold mid-century pieces with natural materials

Travels in the Cyclades inf luenced the decoration of Rebecca Körner’s house on Mykonos, in which the Australian interior designer has combined bold mid-century pieces with stylish elements in natural materials©James McDonald Photography

The huddle of glistening Cycladic limewashed buildings is surrounded by gardens looking over the bay of Elia and across the Aegean to the far islands of Paros and Naxos in the south. It is the Mykonian home of Rebecca Körner, her husband and their two young boys.

With its labyrinthine twists and turns, the vernacular architecture of Mykonos Town has, over the centuries, baffled both pirates and the meltemi, the notorious north wind that sweeps over the Cyclades each summer. Rebecca’s story has its own twists. ‘When I was island hopping 20 years ago, Mykonos seemed remote – more of a Greek secret,’ she recalls. Newly married, she returned a decade ago with her husband and their twins, then aged one. ‘We loved renting this house each year but the Italian owners, who built it in 1995, announced five years ago that they were selling it.’

Rebecca got her zest for sunny climes from growing up in Australia. Thanks to her European heritage and passion for travel, France beckoned. Having spent eight years working in the magazine world in Paris, she later moved to London and founded Körner Skincare. After settling down, she fell into interior design: ‘I decorated our townhouse in London and a client of my husband, who came round for drinks, liked what he saw and asked who we had used. His house became my first project.’

As Körner Interiors, she has since worked on London houses, boutiques and recently on Muse, Tom Aikens’ new Belgravia restaurant. While Rebecca’s husband was keen to buy the Greek house, she hesitated: ‘Unlike him, I knew what was going to be involved.’ They went ahead with the purchase and, armed with a rather limited Greek vocabulary, Rebecca sailed forth. ‘I planned to do the architecture one year and the interiors the next – and with monthly site visits, I managed to achieve this.’

Approaching from the north side, you now pass through a pale blue painted wooden gate onto a narrow white path, flanked by outbuildings, towards a courtyard herb garden scented with basil, lavender, thyme, oregano, parsley and lemon balm. The house is deceptively large. From the outside, it resembles a small bundle of smooth iced wedding cakes, with a covered area swathed in bougainvillea and a bespoke Olympic-sized white marble dining table. A garden path leads round the hill to the expansive pool area

Once inside, the hall on the ground floor opens into a study area and a sitting room, and up a step to a snug, all with new south-facing french windows. ‘I was happy to leave the uneven floors, so although we’ve opened up the living areas, the original rooms are still delineated with steps,’ Rebecca says. At one end is a spare room used for guests and, at the other, a newly enlarged kitchen-dining room. ‘We expanded the terrace to the south, adding a timber and bamboo pergola for shade.’ The lower ground floor now houses the boys’ bedrooms, while upstairs – accessed via a narrow staircase – there is a dressing room, main bathroom and bedroom with a sea-view balcony.

For the interior, Rebecca was keen to avoid the typical ‘antiseptic’ white with blue-painted windows and doors: ‘I loved seeing the island over the winter on my site visits. Unlike the cobalt-sky-on-barren-rock quality of August, out of season, the landscape is grass green with carpets of tiny yellow flowers and red poppies in spring. At dawn and sunset, there was a cold, lilac-pink mist, over pale blue-grey seas.’ She wanted to create a sense of year-round cosiness, with fires, rugs and plenty of colour, and admits the limewash for the walls took time to get right, trying out 50 different shades before settling on ‘Seed’ lime paint by Bauwerk Colour for all the internal walls. ‘It’s not too dark and has a soft, rustic feel to it,’ she explains.

‘Lighting and ambience are important to me. There’s not much natural light and by 8pm the rooms are very dark. We installed a better generator and I spent three months perfecting a lighting plan – avoiding spotlights but using pendants, wall sconces, standard lamps and desk lights.’ Rebecca sourced mid-century furniture from Italy, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Switzerland via auctions; and fabrics from her travels to India, Laos and Japan have been customised into curtains or upholstery. A Seventies sofa by Afra and Tobia Scarpa, formerly in brown leather and now upholstered in Peter Dunham’s ‘Zanzibar’ green linen, is an example of her kaleidoscopically artisanal look.

What next? ‘Now it all works pretty well,’ she replies. ‘One final tweak is adding an outdoor kitchen area in the lower garden, with a central firepit and tiered amphitheatre-style stone seating around it – to hold many guests.’ It seems the family’s Mykonos party days are not quite over yet.

James McDonald1/21Built in the Nineties, the house has been remodelled inside and out by Rebecca. Across from the Greek-style main entrance, a typical Mykonian painted door leads to guest accommodation by the herb garden.
James McDonald2/21Traditional pebblework using black stones from the island of Chios decorates the path to the front door.
James McDonald3/21In the hall, artwork by Rebecca’s 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren hangs above a Forties Czech workbench.
James McDonald4/21‘Seed’ limewash by Bauwerk Colour has been used on the walls of the living areas.

James McDonald5/21In the family room, a vintage Afra and Tobia Scarpa sofa is covered in Peter Dunham Textiles’ ‘Zanzibar’ green linen, with armchairs covered in Lisa Fine’s ‘Aswan’ linen in tobacco. A Seventies yellow ‘Boomerang’ desk by Maurice Calka is paired with a Warren Platner Sixties steel rod ‘Side Chair’ in the area beyond the arch.
James McDonald6/21The blue Berber rug from Marrakech brings colour to the television room.
James McDonald7/21In the kitchen, a Fifties chandelier by Stilnovo hangs above distressed oak units, topped with Zimbabwe black granite.
James McDonald8/21Fratelli Boffi’s ‘Lui5’ chairs are teamed with an oak table bought in London from Petersham Nurseries and yellow ‘Optima 6’ pendants by Hans Due for Fog & Mørup in the kitchen.