Walk twenty minutes east from Chania's Venetian Harbour in Crete and the tourists disappear.

The seafront promenade thins out. The souvenir shops stop. You enter the Tabakaria district – an entire neighborhood classified as an architectural monument, and almost entirely abandoned.

Crete spent a decade under Egyptian administration in the 1830s. The rulers planted an industrial leather quarter here on the northeastern coast – far enough from the city center that the smell wouldn't reach residents, close enough to the sea to draw on the brackish underground water that tanning required.

At its peak, around 80 tanneries operated in this district. Next door sat Halepa, Chania's aristocratic quarter. Working-class industry and political elite, neighbors.

By the late 1970s, most tanneries had closed. Heritage laws now protect the buildings. Most of them just stand empty, salt-bleached, doors swinging.

Then there's this place.

Manolis Agorastakis came to Tabakaria in the early 1990s looking for a seaside cottage. His wife pointed at the derelict tanneries.

His daughter Katerina studied the buildings for her university thesis – exploring what the shells could become and how to preserve their industrial character without erasing it. Konstantina, the daughter-in-law and architect, designed the conversion. Manolis, a mechanical and electrical engineer, spent years navigating heritage-protection permits for every detail.

What they built: four connected factory buildings, 20 suites, all waterfront.

The leather dyeing pits are now the outdoor Jacuzzi. An antique well – the original water source that made this neighborhood possible – sits visible through a glass panel in the restaurant floor. A leather hide press stands in the lobby windows. The bones of the building are the design.

Red roof tiles. Exposed stone walls. Vaulted wood beams. A monochrome palette of concrete, glass, marble, and wood that doesn't compete with the industrial structure it lives inside.

The spa looks out at the Aegean through picture windows. The restaurant, Periplous, sits directly above the sea. The walk to Chania's Old Town takes twenty minutes, along the waterfront.

That juxtaposition – five-star suites inside a factory, surrounded by ruins that heritage law protects but hasn't saved – is exactly what The Side Door is looking for.

Hit reply if you've ever wandered into a neighborhood like this: somewhere that fell off the map and somehow stayed itself because of it.

Book the Tanneries Hotel & Spa here.