The house was built in 1753, originally as a private residence for the wealthy Mykonian Campani family. It was the former residence of the Greek war heroine Mando Mavroghenous' grandfather. Historian Ioannis Meletopoulos, who married into the family and inherited the building, declared in his will that he wanted half the house to be converted into a library when he passed away to house his and others' collections of books. John Ratekin, one of the donators, lived in Mykonos during the 1960s when the island became popular among the gay community. He even wrote a book about the island called "The Mykonos Story: Poems and Line Drawings by the Dreammaker" and created the first "Tourist Guide to Mykonos". The current owners of the property is Mikis Campanis, the former Greek ambassador to Rome, and the house remains half residential. The marble pillars on the outside are claimed to be from the neighbouring island of Delos, but this has been proven impossible as there is no marble on Delos. Therefore it is most likely that they came from Naxos, which means that they could be thousands of years old!