History of Mon Repos Palace
A peaceful villa surrounded by greenery, Mon Repos hides a fascinating history—royal stories, political disputes, and even a royal birth.
Mon Repos Palace was built in 1826 by the British High Commissioner Frederick Adams as a gift for his second wife, the Corfiot Nina Palatianou.
The elegant neoclassical villa, completed in 1828, was designed by George Whitmore—the same architect behind the Palace of St. Michael and St. George on Spianada Square (today home to the Museum of Asian Art).
Although beautiful, the couple didn’t enjoy it for long—Adams was soon sent to India. The villa then became the summer residence of British governors.
Mon Repos entered royal history in a remarkable way: on June 10, 1921, Prince Philip—later the husband of Queen Elizabeth II—was born here.
Earlier, in 1863, the villa hosted Empress Elisabeth of Austria. She fell in love with Corfu and later built her own palace, Achilleion Palace, nearby.
After the Ionian Islands united with Greece in 1864, the villa became the summer residence of George I of Greece, who gave it its name Mon Repos—French for “My Rest.”
During World War II, the villa served as the residence of the Italian governor of the Ionian Islands.
After the war, the Greek royal family continued using Mon Repos until 1967, when Constantine II of Greece left the country. The villa was later abandoned for a period.
For years, ownership of the property was disputed between the Greek state and the former royal family. The case eventually reached the European Court of Human Rights, which in 2002 awarded the former king compensation for confiscated properties after Greece became a republic in 1975.
Today, Mon Repos stands as a historical landmark, open to visitors and surrounded by a beautiful park that has been accessible to the public since the 19th century.
A curious detail: Prince Philip’s original birth certificate was later discovered in the archives of Corfu Municipality—written in the formal Greek of the time, closer to ancient Greek than the language spoken today.