Residence of Ioannis Sapountzis (1901)

The residence of Ioannis Sapountzis dates back to the last period of Turkish rule and, according to Thanasis Vogiatzis, it was built in 1901.
Ioannis Sapountzis was born in 1878 in Kelli, Florina and died in 1958. He was a merchant by profession and served as mayor of Florina from 1923 to 1924. He also took part in the Macedonian struggle, where he developed his activities as a third-class agent.
Fani Aidali Sapountzi (1912-2004), a distinguished lyric-dramatic soprano with a career at the Athens Opera and in Germany and wife of the lawyer Themistocles Sapountzi, spent her summers there.
The cube-shaped tile-roofed two-story building is arranged on the building line, with the courtyard at the rear of the plot. It is a symmetrical building with simple neoclassical morphology on the facades, an influence of the early classicism of Athens. Pseudo-bars divide the surface of the façade into three sections and organize the openings in between, while horizontal decorative frames separate the levels. Linear frames decorate the windows, while the main entrance is formed by a semi-circular skylight. It is one of the first examples where the neoclassical morphology is attributed to the plasterwork (pulling) rather than the use of wood.
The interior furnishings are preserved from the inter-war period, which is why Theodoros Angelopoulos chose it to shoot scenes for his film “The Beekeeper”. The building, as an inset plaque indicates, was insured by the Northern Insurance Company, which was founded in 1836 in Aberdeen, Scotland.

TEXT SOURCE: http://history.eled.uowm.gr 
SOURCES OF PHOTOS: Christos Tegos