Maximou building

The Maximou Mansion (Megaro Maximou), at 19 Herodou Attikou Street, began to be built in 1912 as the residence of the shipowner Alexandros Michalinos, to designs attributed to the distinguished architect Anastasios Chelmis. In 1921 it was acquired by Michalinos’s widow, Eirini, by then the wife of the banker and politician Dimitrios Maximos, and the Maximos couple completed the building and settled there.

During the Second World War, the German military occupation authorities used it as the residence of the German Admiral of the Aegean. After the liberation, the first post-war Ambassador of the United States was briefly housed here. In 1952 the Mansion passed into the ownership of the Greek state, together with its extremely costly furnishings and important collection of paintings, at half its value.

The government retained its name, Maximou Mansion, in honour of its former owner, and in the first years of the Metapolitefsi (after 1974) it became a guesthouse for high-ranking guests of the government. Since 1982 it has been used as the official residence of the Prime Minister.