Maximos Mansion
Maximos Mansion
The building was originally founded in 1912 by Alexandros Michalinos. A ship-owner from the island of Chios. At the time, the location was used as a garden for the Royal Palace. In 1916, Michalinos' widow, having been married to Dimitrios Maximos, sold the incomplete building to Leonidas Empeirikos, only to re-buy it in 1921. Maximos family completed the construction and settled there in the early 1920s. During the German Occupation, the mansion was used as the Residence of the German Admiral of the Aegean Sea.
After the war, the building was shortly used as the seat of the U.S. Ambassador in Athens. In 1952, Dimitrios Maximos sold the mansion to the Greek State at a favorable price. From the mid-1950s until 1982, the Mansion was used as a guesthouse for important foreign dignitaries visiting Greece, including Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia in 1955 and Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom in 1980. In 1982, it was decided by the government of Andreas Papandreou to renovate it and move the Prime Minister's office in the Mansion.
