VILLA JULIA
THE PEROGLOU FAMILY
Villa Julia was built by Nikolaos Peroglou in 1893.
The Peroglou family was a prominent family of Smyrna. The marriage contract in the name of Maria Dilberoglou, wife of Petros Peroglou, grandfather of Nikolaos, made in 1805, has been preserved and still exists to this day.
The son of Petros Peroglou, Ioannis, and his wife Ekaterini Miliotou settled in Athens, where their son Nikolaos was born in the house on the corner of Koumbari street and V. Sofias avenue. This house passed in later years to the Benaki family, with whom the Peroglou family were on friendly terms, and is today the roof of the Benaki Museum. Here, Nikolaos lived through his childhood and early youth with his parents and his three siblings: his older sister Marietta and his two younger brothers Alexandros and Petros.
Nikolaos Peroglou married Julia, daughter of Nikolaos Notaras and Eleni K. Negri. In the main hall of Villa Julia there is a big painting of the Konstantinos Negris family, representing the parents and their numerous children, among whom stands Eleni and her young brother Fokion holding a white dove in his hand.
Nikolaos and Julia Peroglou had two daughters, Marietta and Eleni. The family moved in a new house at 14, Kanari street. In 1956, this house was demolished and an appartment building was erected in its place, where some of the descendants of the family still live.
Little is known about Nikolaos and his life’s work. The only existing document is a handbook written by himself, titled “The Pistacchio Tree”. All other information comes from the oral tradition of the island or from memories of his family.
According to his granddaughter, Annetta Hitzanidou, he must have visited Aegina for the first time in 1890. In the winter of that year, his daughter Etta had been ill with a serious bronchite and the doctor recommended the child should be moved to Egina for its mild and benign climate to speed up her recovery. The family rented a house in Perivola for the summer. They liked the island excessively, and were particularly charmed by the unique beauty of the horizon on its meridional coast. So, they bought a plot of about 20 acres in Agia Irini in order to build their own summer house, which was eventually finished in 1893, as testifies the inscription on the front of the house: Villa Julia 1893.
