Former Mount Parnitha sanatorium declared a listed building
The former tuberculosis sanatorium on Mount Parnitha, north of Athens, has been declared a listed building by the Environment Ministry. The building is owned by the Public Real Estate Company, which intends to proceed with its development.
It was built in the 1930s on the site of a smaller 14-bed wooden sanatorium built in 1914. The site, donated in 1914 by the Petraki Monastery to Evangelismos Hospital, was chosen as the mountain air was thought to aid tuberculosis patients. The poet Yannis Ritsos was treated there from October 1937 to April 1938.
The industrial production of penicillin led to the decline of all such sanatoria from the 1940s. The one on Parnitha continued to operate until the end of the 1950s. In 1965 it was transferred to the National Tourism Organization and operated as a hotel until 1967, when it housed the Tourism Education Organization until 1984. It was abandoned afterward.
