Greek philanthropist Aliki Perroti, who died last Friday, lived to the age of 101. To tell the tale of her life would mean recounting entire chapters of world history from the 20th century to the start of the 21st: from the entrepreneurial vision of her father, Theodoros Konstantopoulos, who founded the first Greek multinational construction company, Archirodon, with Konstantinos Karpidas, to the Dekemvriana clashes in Athens during World War II, which she spent in her home, on 42 Amalias Avenue, across from Zappeion; and from the elite circles of New York to the Trump Tower, where she kept running into the current president of the United States in the elevator.
Renowned for her beauty, she was famously captured by Andy Warhol. But Perroti also left behind a significant legacy of patriotism, as well as public and secret benevolence. The large donation she made with her husband in the 1980s to the Konstantopoulio General Hospital in the Athens suburb of Nea Ionia, which was named in honor of her parents, Maroula and Theodore Konstantopoulos, stands out. She also donated to Greece’s Naval Hospital and the Hellenic Army Academy, and supported the American Farm School in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, for many years.
