8 Best Private Pool Villas in Santorini (Honest 2026 Picks)
Last updated: July 2026 · by Erika Thompson
The best private pool villas in Santorini almost all look identical online. Same white curves, same impossibly blue infinity edge, same golden Oia sunset.
Book from the photos alone and you can end up with a “private” pool a few feet from the public walking path. Or a plunge pool the size of a large bathtub, sold to you as a place to swim.
That’s the gap this list closes. I’m not reprinting the same ten glossy shots everyone else does. Every villa below earns its place on the pool itself, the view, and how private that pool actually feels once you’re standing in it. And every one comes with the honest catch nobody else prints.
After seven years booking trips like these for clients as a travel advisor, I’ve learned the questions the brochures quietly dodge. Is the pool heated? Is it truly yours, or the famous shared one? Does it face the caldera, or your neighbor’s terrace?
You’ll get the good and the catch for all eight, counted down from number 8 up to my number 1 pick.
Why the Right Private Pool Villa in Santorini Matters
In Santorini, the stay isn’t a place to sleep between excursions. It is the trip.
You’ll spend your best hours right on your terrace, watching the caldera change color, drink in hand. So the pool and the view aren’t extras here. They’re the whole reason you’re paying Santorini prices.
Which means getting it wrong is expensive. A cold pool in June, a “caldera view” that’s really a side-angle, or a terrace the sunset crowds can see straight into can quietly deflate the one trip you saved all year for. That’s what this list is built to prevent.
What “Private Pool” Really Means in Santorini
This is the part almost every other guide skips, and it’s the one that trips people up most.
In Santorini, “private” means the pool is for your use only. It does not mean secluded. Many private pools sit on open terraces along the Oia-to-Fira path, so you’ll have your own water, with a steady stream of walkers a few feet away. If total seclusion matters to you, that’s a real thing to check before you book, and I’ve flagged it for each villa below.
Then there’s the pool itself. A true private infinity pool is rare and pricey. Far more common are plunge pools and heated jacuzzis, which are lovely for cooling off but are not for swimming laps. Some are heated, many are not, and an unheated pool in early or late season can be too cold to use. A few of the island’s most famous “pools” are actually shared, with private pools reserved for only the top suites.
None of that is a reason to avoid these places. It’s just the difference between the villa you think you booked and the one you actually get. Every entry below tells you which is which.
How I Ranked the Best Private Pool Villas in Santorini
I’ll be straight with you: I haven’t stayed in all eight, and I won’t pretend I have. This is research-based curation, drawing on my years in the travel industry, current room-type details from each property, recent guest reviews across multiple platforms, and live pricing.
For each villa I weighed six things: the pool itself (type, size, whether it’s heated), the view, how private that pool really feels, the visual and design appeal, the overall luxury level, and the value for what you pay. A property dropped down the list when the “private” pool was really a shared one, when the water feature was smaller than the photos suggest, or when the terrace faced heavy foot traffic.
The 8 Best Private Pool Villas in Santorini at a Glance
Short on time? Here’s the full lineup side by side. Full reviews follow below, counting down to number 1.
| Rank | Villa | Pool type | Best for | Area | Price band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ★ 1 | Andronis Luxury Suites | Private infinity + indoor cave pools | Best overall private-pool stay | Oia | $$$$ |
| 2 | Canaves Oia Suites | Private infinity & plunge | Private pools over the caldera | Oia | $$$$ |
| 3 | Andronis Arcadia | Large private pools | Big pools & sunsets | Oia | $$$$ |
| 4 | Phos The Boutique | Private heated infinity | Front-row privacy, fewer crowds | Akrotiri | $$$ |
| 5 | Andronis Concept Wellness | Private infinity | Wellness & privacy | Imerovigli | $$$$ |
| 6 | Vora | Infinity plunge pool | Design lovers & photos | Imerovigli | $$$$$ |
| 7 | Domes Novos, Autograph Collection | Private plunge pools | Modern suites, sunset views | Oia | $$$ |
| 8 | Santorini Sky | Private pool (hilltop) | Total seclusion | Pyrgos | $$$ |
Santorini Sky: A Private Pool Villa at the Island’s Highest Point
Santorini Sky is for couples who want a genuinely private pool and total quiet more than they want to be perched on the Oia cliffs. It’s a tiny resort, just five villas, sitting about 2,000 feet above the Aegean in Pyrgos, the highest village on the island. Each villa comes with its own private pool plus a separate heated jacuzzi, a secluded terrace, and a panoramic view that takes in most of Santorini at once. Guests describe it again and again as feeling like a world of their own, and that’s the whole point.
What you’re trading is location. This is the anti-Oia. You won’t step out of your room into the blue-domes-and-sunset crowds, because you’re up on a quiet hilltop with the island laid out below you instead. For a lot of couples, that trade is the reason they book. The privacy and calm up here are simply on another level from the cliffside hotels, and you can still see Fira and Oia glittering in the distance after dark.
Rates move a lot with the season and the villa you pick, so check current pricing before you fall for it. Expect roughly $700 a night and up for a pool villa in the peak months. For that you get one of just five villas, your own pool and a separate heated jacuzzi, and the kind of stillness that makes you cancel your plans and stay in. If privacy and panoramas matter to you more than a caldera address, it’s a genuinely special way to open this list.
Check rates on Expedia →Domes Novos Santorini: Private Pool Suites a Few Minutes From Oia
Domes Novos Santorini gets the nod over Santorini Sky for travelers who want that same off-caldera value but with a full resort wrapped around it. It’s an Autograph Collection property in Tholos, about a five-minute drive from Oia, and every one of its 52 suites comes with its own private plunge pool on a ground-floor terrace with sunbeds. It opened in 2024, so it’s modern and spacious in a way that’s genuinely rare on crowded Santorini. Best of all, there are no cliffside stairs to haul your luggage up.
This is the pick if you want your own pool plus the trappings of a proper resort. There’s a standout Soma Spa with volcanic-infused treatments and an indoor pool, a couple of restaurants and bars, a gym, sunrise yoga, and even a kids’ club, which makes it one of the few genuinely family-friendly private-pool stays on the island. It’s polished, calm, and easy, the sort of place where you settle in rather than climb around.
Rates move with the season, so check current pricing, but expect roughly $550 a night and up for a plunge-pool suite in the peak months. For that you get a brand-new Autograph Collection resort, your own pool, one of the island’s best spas, and none of the stairs, which for a lot of travelers is a smarter trade than paying double for a caldera address.
Check rates on Expedia →Vora: A Design-Icon Private Pool Villa on the Caldera’s Edge
Vora climbs above Domes Novos for one simple reason: it’s actually on the caldera. This is a trio of design-magazine villas carved into the cliff at Imerovigli, with full-frontal views of the volcano, Skaros Rock, and the sunset that Domes Novos can only reach by shuttle. There are just three villas here, named Alpha, Ro, and Omikron, and it’s routinely called one of the most beautiful places to stay on the entire island. If your Santorini photos are the whole point, this is the villa that delivers them.
The design is the draw. K Studio blended Cycladic white curves with a cool Scandinavian calm, and the result is the kind of space you don’t want to leave, which is just as well, because with an on-call private chef serving meals right on your terrace, you barely have to. Villa Omikron is the original cave house with the largest terrace and a panorama that takes in the whole island, while Alpha and Ro are split-level duplexes with the best sunset angles.
Rates are steep and swing with the season, so check current pricing, but expect roughly $1,200 a night and up in the peak months, sometimes well beyond. For that you get one of just three of the most beautiful villas in Santorini, a private chef, and arguably the best terrace-and-caldera view money can buy here. If design and that view matter more to you than the size of your pool, few places on the island touch it.
Check rates on Expedia →Andronis Concept Wellness Resort: Private Infinity Pool Suites in Imerovigli
Andronis Concept Wellness Resort edges out Vora on the one thing this list is actually about: the pool. Where Vora gives you a spa-tub-scale plunge pool, nearly every one of the 28 suites and villas here comes with a genuine private heated infinity pool, a real one you can actually get into and cool off in, hanging over the caldera in Imerovigli. It’s the calmer, more wellness-minded sibling of the Andronis family, and the sunset-and-volcano views are every bit as good.
As the name says, this one’s built around slowing down. There’s the Kallos Spa and hammam, sunrise hikes and sunset yoga on a terrace with that view, a gym, even a tennis court, and Throubi restaurant serving farm-to-table Greek food from the hotel’s own garden. It’s also refreshingly easy to get around, most of the resort has no stairs at all, and it sits right on the Fira-to-Oia walking trail, so you can wander the caldera path straight from your door.
Rates vary by season and suite, so check current pricing, but expect roughly $750 a night and up in the peak months, and noticeably less in the shoulder season. For that you get a genuine heated infinity pool, a full wellness resort, and one of the easiest, calmest caldera locations on the island. This is the pick when you want to actually use your pool, not just photograph it.
Check rates on Expedia →Phos The Boutique: A Private Infinity Pool Villa With Real Privacy in Akrotiri
Phos The Boutique fixes the one flaw that held Andronis Concept back: privacy. Out on the quiet caldera edge in Akrotiri, far from the Fira-to-Oia foot traffic, every villa and suite here comes with a genuine private heated infinity pool that’s truly yours, no walking path, no crowds peering in. Guests describe having the pool completely to themselves, with unobstructed views of the volcano and the Aegean. It’s the same real, swimmable infinity pool as the hotels above, but with the seclusion the busier caldera villages simply can’t offer.
And it’s a stunner. Refreshed in 2023, the suites and villas are individually designed, some with show-off pools like the Diamond Infinity Pool, the only one of its kind on the island. It leans hard into romance: adults-only, à la carte breakfast delivered to your pool deck, in-suite spa treatments, floating breakfasts, and a candlelight dinner served on a platform above your own pool at sunset. More than a few people have gotten engaged right here.
Rates vary by season and suite, so check current pricing, but expect roughly $600 a night and up in the peak months, which is often better value than a comparable pool in Oia. For that you get a truly private heated infinity pool, unobstructed caldera views, and the kind of quiet honeymoon most people picture when they imagine Santorini but rarely actually get on the crowded cliffs.
Check rates on Expedia →Andronis Arcadia: Private Pool Villas a Short Walk From Oia
Andronis Arcadia climbs above Phos by refusing to make you choose. Phos gives you a private pool but strands you 45 minutes from the action; Arcadia gives you a private pool on your terrace and puts you a five-minute walk from Oia, the postcard Santorini everyone comes for. Every one of its 113 suites and villas has its own heated pool with sunset sea views, and it sits on Oia’s quieter northwestern edge, so you get the iconic location without being in the crush.
What makes the villas special is that the pool is genuinely yours. Every suite and villa opens onto a private terrace with its own heated pool angled at the sunset, so you can swim in real privacy with the open Aegean glowing in front of you. The design matches, warm, earthy, and textured rather than the stark white you see all over the island. And when you want more than your own terrace, there’s a full luxury resort behind you: the Evexia Spa, three restaurants including Beefbar, a kids’ club, and even the hotel’s own yacht.
Rates vary by season and suite, so check current pricing, but expect roughly $850 a night and up in the peak months. For that you get a genuine private pool on your terrace, a five-minute walk to Oia, sunset sea views, and a full-service resort behind you, which is a lot of Santorini for the money if you want the iconic location without giving up your own private pool.
Check rates on Expedia →Canaves Oia Suites: Private Pool Suites Right Over the Caldera
Canaves Oia Suites edges out Andronis Arcadia on the view you actually came to Santorini for. Where Arcadia’s pools face the open sea and sunset, Canaves puts your private pool right over the caldera itself, that crater-and-volcano panorama on every postcard. It’s carved into the cliffs at the start of Oia’s marble path, a Small Luxury Hotels member with only a couple of dozen suites, and every single one comes with its own heated pool and that view. This is the classic cliffside Oia dream, done properly.
And the private pools here have real range. Most suites come with a heated plunge pool on your own terrace, but you can go further: the Infinity Pool Suite and the newer Pool Suites have private infinity-edge pools, and the Executive Suite has a rare private cave pool, shaded and carved into the rock, one of Santorini’s signature looks. Best of all, despite sitting right in the heart of Oia, guests consistently say the terraces feel genuinely private, tucked behind subtle walls and landscaping, so your pool actually feels like yours.
Rates vary by season and suite, so check current pricing, but expect roughly $800 a night and up in the peak months, more for the infinity-pool suites and the villa. For that you get a private pool over the actual caldera, one of the most consistently loved luxury hotels in Oia, and a terrace that somehow stays private in the busiest village on the island. It’s the caldera-view private pool most people picture when they dream about Santorini.
Check rates on Expedia →Andronis Luxury Suites: Private Pool Suites With Infinity and Cave Pools
Andronis Luxury Suites takes the top spot because no one does the private pool experience quite like this. Carved into the Oia cliffs right on the caldera’s edge, its suites and villas offer a range of private pools you won’t find together anywhere else on this list: private infinity pools hanging over the volcano, and, in the Honeymoon Suite, an authentic cave plunge pool carved into the rock indoors. It’s the flagship of the Andronis family and a Leading Hotels of the World member, and it pairs that pool experience with what many guests call the best service and dining in Oia.
Where Canaves gives you a lovely plunge pool over the caldera, Andronis gives you a real choice. The Superior, Exclusive and Sunset suites come with private infinity pools that spill toward the sea, and the top Infinity Pool Suite has a genuine full-sized one, while every terrace frames the same jaw-dropping view of the caldera, the volcano, and Skaros Rock. Add the award-winning Lycabettus restaurant, a cave-style spa, and a MINI Cooper Cabrio thrown in with some suites, and it’s the most complete private-pool stay on the island.
Rates vary a lot by season and suite, so check current pricing, but expect roughly $900 a night and up in the peak months, climbing well past that for the infinity-pool villas. For that you get the best private-pool experience in Santorini, front-row caldera views, and the service and dining that keep this at the very top of Oia. If you’re going to splurge on one thing in Santorini, make it the pool you wake up to here.
Check rates on Expedia →