The Salem Mansion
Walking the streets of Thessaloniki
The Salem Mansion, located on Vas. Olgas Street-Thessaloniki, was designed in 1878 by Xenophon Paionides (1863-1933). He was, perhaps, the most famous Greek architect in Thessaloniki.
The three-storey Salem Mansion is one of the finest examples in Thessaloniki of the city’s neo-baroque eclecticism. It has an elaborate façade and is built with luxurious materials. It has baroque pediments, and its architectural styles combine elements of classicism, renaissance and baroque styles.
The villa changed hands during World War I, and when the Salem family left in 1915 and it became the Consulate of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was bought by the Italian state in 1924, and for it served as the Italian Consulate for more than half a century, until 1978.
The Salem family came to Thessaloniki with the wave of Sephardic Jewish refugees fleeing Spain and the Spanish Inquisition after 1492. They first appear as a prominent family in Thessaloniki around 1550, when Avraam Salem, perhaps a medical graduate of Coimbra University, was practicing in the city as a medical doctor.
After the earthquakes of 1978, due to the serious damage, it was abandoned to the ravages of time, although it had been classified as a protected monument in 1980. The actions of the Greek side towards the owner-Italian state, to take safety measures for the building and to restore the monument to its original form, were not effective. In the first decade of the 20th century, the abandoned building began to be destroyed by vandals who removed elaborate ironwork and pieces of the exceptional architectural decoration.
The destructive fury and abandonment of the protected building reached such a painful state that in 2013 its photo adorned an advertising poster for the American horror television series “Coven”! The hit series stars the good actress Jessica Lange and the haunted house (of the poster) is supposedly located in New Orleans.