As you enter the Armenohandrades plateau and just before you reach the village of Handras in Siteia, you come across the medieval village of Etia where the renowned “De Mezzo” villa is located. The Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Gerola who toured Crete in the beginning of the 20th century, reports that the owners of the villa were a family named De Mezzο based on the coat of arms carved on the building’s facade. 

The current appearance of the villa with the elaborate renaissance details dates back to the early 1700s. Embossed figures (chimeras) with flowering shoots in heraldic arrangement support the coat of arms of De Mezzo at the main entrance. On the lintel, there is the Latin inscription “INTRA VOSTRA SIGNIORIA SENZA RISPETTO” which means “enter without shame”. On the left side of the villa, there is a fountain which poured water into stone troughs. A built-in inscription bears 1701 as the date of construction and the name of Bishop Meletios Trivizas.

The village of Etia reached its prime during the last two centuries of the Venetian era (15th - 17th century). After the Turkish occupation, Ottoman officials settled in the villa, giving it the name Seragio or Serai.

The building was bought by the Archaeological Society on behalf of the Greek State in 1959 and was declared a historical monument which is nowadays open to visitors.