WHAM! Lindsay Lohan's Mykonos beach to go boom with trio of new hotels—sans LiLo
But can the party island stand the pressure?
Americans had high hopes for Lindsay Lohan in Greece, but in the end she preferred the glitzy autocracy of Dubai to the birthplace of democracy. Despite a big push on MTV and plenty of promotional fanfare in the U.S. Lohan’s short-lived Beach Club on the Kalo Livadi shore of Mykonos didn’t make it past year one. What all that publicity did do, however, was raise the profile of a rather ordinary stretch of sand on what is rapidly becoming the most expensive party island in the world.
And certainly one of the most popular. Consider that in July hotel revenue jumped by 622% compared to the previous year. There are already 360 hotels on the small island. New ones are mushrooming like…well, like mushrooms after a Greek typhoon and at least three are in the works for Kalo Livadi alone. One of these, Project Blue, will reportedly be set on a 90-acre site with 150 rooms and suites. Another luxury property nearby could have a 340-bed capacity when finished, about 1,300 feet from the beach. The total investment of the three hotels will be around $200 million, according to Greece Is. The website has also reported that “London & Regional Properties, in cooperation with Intrakat and Intradevelopment, is close to completing a luxurious complex at a 100,000-square meter plot at Kalo Livadi” which will bring together 75 suites and 12 villas, two restaurants and a spa, and is expected to cost up to €100 million.”
When we last visited Kalo Livadi, the only thing we remembered seeing—other than LiLo’s derelict Beach Club, where Lindsay Coladas were once eagerly (or maybe begrudgingly?) poured—was the Aegon Mykonos, Autograph Collection hotel sort of tucked behind the beach. In the course of our very brief stay there (there was a ferry strike and we had nowhere else to go) we had a fantastic club sandwich and watched a troubled British Karen berate the staff because she didn’t like the way her eggs were prepared. Things down on the sand were thankfully more low-key, but with the addition of three big properties we’re not sure how long that kind of vibe is going to last. How do we feel about that?
Shortly before the summer’s mini-lockdown in Mykonos we visited Nammos Mykonos, a shopping and beach club down by Ornos Beach. The music was so ridiculously loud at the beach club that the temporary ban on music that was to come almost felt like comeuppance. The shops were all of the Balenciaga and Dior stripe, i.e. boring AF (what this place needs is a good TJMaxx!) and less cosmopolitan in flavor than simply showy-offy. The only people shopping were handsome Arab types and their probably handsome but hijab-hidden wives and other card-carrying members of the Louis Vuitton brigades: yawn. If there were any Americans or Italians or Greek locals about they must have been hidden even better.
So, is this luxury construction boom on Mykonos sustainable? Developers gonna insist that it is, but then if you aspire to be nothing more than a sort of Manhattan in the Med how can you go wrong? On these kinds of fragile islands (Mykonos is only slighly larger than Manhattan), you can erect as many hotels as you want, but what you inevitably subtract in the process is soul. In the history of Mykonos Lohan’s departure from Kalo Livadi will be just a blip, but it was an anchor for something actually potentially interesting — for a while, anyway.
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