Historic Leros Hotel in Lakki Begins a New Life as Cultural Venue and Guesthouse

In Lakki of Leros, where one of the most special sets of buildings of Italian architecture and of the Interwar era is preserved, the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, visited the historic "Leros Hotel", which was restored by the Ministry of Culture and granted to The Municipality of Leros.

The iconic building, designated a monument and an important example of rationalist architecture, takes on new life as a complete energy-efficient building with cultural uses and guest rooms.

The project is part of the wider planning of the Ministry of Culture for the protection and promotion of the cultural wealth of Leros, while the strategic plan for "Highlighting the architectural and urban planning importance of the Lakki and Lepida settlements" was preceded by the Ministry of Culture, the National Technical University of Athens and the University of Thessaly.

The restoration and reuse of the historic hotel”Leros” which is the subject of a Cultural Development Programme Agreement between the Ministry of Culture, the South Aegean Region and The Municipality of Leros, highlights the historicity and architectural identity of the building, but also modernizes it with modern, energy-efficient facilities.

The responsibility for its operation now passes to The Municipality of Leros, enriching the island with a new area of ​​culture and hospitality, organically integrated into the special set of the settlement. It is noted that the restoration of the historic building in Lakki, with a budget of 2,197,323 euros, was included in the Recovery and Resilience Fund.

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According to historical evidence, the "Leros Hotel", known during the period of Italian rule as "Albergo Roma", was part of the administrative, economic and cultural centre of Porto Lago, as Lakki was then called. Together with the Town Hall or Municipio, the Giacomo Puccini Cinema and the Market or Mercato, it formed the centre of the coastal zone of the Italian military base in the Dodecanese.

The hotel and the cinema have been classified since 1995 as historical monuments "because they are remarkable examples of buildings of Italian architecture and of the interwar period, important for the study of the history of architecture in the specific area and they are integral parts of the architectural and urban fabric of the city of Lakki".

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