Turkish delights welcome travellers

As the latest destination among trendsetters and globetrotters, Istanbul has, in the past few years, exponentially increased the number of boutique and designer hotels stocked with state-of-the art amenities, modern decor and spa facilities. It seems that everywhere you look, MP3 docking stations and flatscreen TVs abound.

But what if you’re looking for a taste of the authentic?

Sadly, up until a few decades ago, taking the scorched-earth approach was a property owner’s answer to the idea of historic preservation. But now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction and visitors to the city that hosted three great empires can eschew modern minimalism and opt instead for Old World elegance.

One might say that the trend toward saving, rather than razing, Istanbul’s extraordinary treasures began with one visionary man: Çelik Gülersoy, who in 1966 took the helm of the Turkish Touring and Automobile Club (TTOK), Turkey’s answer to the CAA.

The project that had the most impact on how Turks felt about their architectural heritage was arguably the Yesil Ev, or Green House hotel, which, when purchased by the TTOK in 1977, was one of hundreds of crumbling Ottoman mansions in the city’s historical bull’s-eye – and utterly derelict – neighbourhood of Sultanahmet.

In its original incarnation, the Yesil Ev served as the home of the Ottoman minister of monopolies, a stately example of the marriage between European (mostly French) influences and traditional Ottoman features such as cumba (bay extensions or cantilevered overhangs) that were both decorative and functional.

In a traditional Turkish house, all of the embellishment was focused inside the home, while the exterior remained bland, protecting the family from prying eyes. In place of the traditional, multipurpose oda (Turkish for “room”), where pillows and cushions provided seating by day and mattresses welcomed the weary at night, these “modern” Ottoman mansions had bedrooms – and actual beds.

Under Gülersoy’s leadership, the mansion was reconstructed, clapboard by clapboard, into an exact replica. Inside you will find ornamental brocades, decorative wallpaper, handmade carpets and – in the Pasha Suite – gilded bedsteads and a marble hamam (Turkish steam bath). The building’s crowning feature, however, is the expansive garden courtyard, lushly arranged around a glass-enclosed winter garden and a fountain carved of pink porphyry (a type of Egyptian rock).

To be fair, later preservationists, as well as UNESCO, heavily criticized the rebuilding, rather than the restoration, of these timber buildings. But Gülersoy’s vision set the ball in motion for a more sensitive treatment of structures in disrepair. Prior to the Yesil Ev, concrete blocks were the primary replacement mechanism for urban ruins.

As part of the Yesil Ev revival, the adjacent Cedid Mehmet Efendi Medrese was also restored, now housing the Istanbul Handicrafts Centre, where artists and craftsmen are supported in their quest to practise and showcase previously dying Ottoman crafts such as miniature painting, ebru (paper marbling), glass-blowing, book-binding and lacework.

TTOK’s investment in the Yesil Ev paid off, so much so that the company staged an encore the following year along the cobbled and picturesque Sogukçesme Sokak street. Sandwiched between the outer courtyard wall of Topkapi Palace and the backside of the Hagia Sophia, Sogukçesme Sokak remained free of buildings for at least a century or two after the conquest of the city.

But then a number of employees of the palace and the Hagia Sophia realized how convenient it might be live close to work, building wooden houses right up against the palace wall.

But these houses suffered much the same fate as other area buildings. They were either left to rot or replaced with concrete atrocities.

Gülersoy set to work. Today, the faithfully rebuilt row houses, with names like “Jasmine House,” or “Wisteria House” for the flowering blooms that share their address, comprise the Ayasofya Konaklari, a nostalgic collection of guest rooms once again decorated in elegant, western-influenced (gilded, tassled and velvety) style. The Konaklari can also boast a distinguished guest list that includes Bernardo Bertolucci, Roman Polanski and Queen Sofia of Spain.

Perhaps the most opulent example of Istanbul’s trend toward preserving its Ottoman francophile century is the Pera Palace Hotel, a masterwork designed by Turkish-born Levantine architect Alexandre Vallaury, fusing neo-classical, art nouveau and oriental styles.

The Compagnie Internationale de Wagon Lits, owner of the Orient Express, commissioned the building of the hotel to provide its illustrious guests with appropriately appointed lodging, sadly lacking in late 19thcentury Istanbul.

When completed in 1895, the Pera Palace was the only building in the empire other than in the palaces to have electricity and the only address in town with hot running water.

The Pera Palace rapidly wove itself into the fabric of the city, welcoming many of the world’s most famous, and infamous, personalities. On the eve of and through the Great War, with the Ottoman Empire weakened and collapsing, Istanbul, and particularly the Pera Palace, was a key prop in the international intrigues taking shape at the time. Mata Hari, the exotic dancer and reputed seducer of men in high offices, was a guest in 1897.

In 1921, an Azerbaijani diplomat was assassinated as he relaxed in one of the hotel’s red velvet armchairs. Tradition also puts Kim Philby, the British double agent spying for the KGB, at the hotel after the Second World War.

Agatha Christie (reputed to have written Murder on the Orient Express in Room 411) slept here, as did Ernest Hemingway, assigned to report on the Turkish Greek hostilities (and who spent most of his time in the Orient Bar).

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic, spent time in Room 101, perhaps, as to rumour says, with Zsa Zsa Gabor.

In 2010, after a four-year period of planning, renovation and restoration, the Pera Palace emerged from hibernation as an authentic icon updated for modern sensibilities. Whereas through the decades, the ballroom, patisserie, lobby and Orient Bar had become dingy and dated (albeit nostalgic), architects and preservationists reinfused life into these gala spaces by adding period antiques, Carrara marble, stained glass and Murano chandeliers. A full-service spa with jet-stream pool brings the hotel into the 21st century as the only added feature, made possible by excavating down a floor through the cement foundation to create a basement level.

Guest room floors are made cheery with the removal of an interior wall to create a light-filled, floorto-ceiling central atrium. Signature rooms and suites are outfitted to invoke some of the hotel’s more celebrated guests, with feminine pinks for Greta Garbo, sky blues to imitate the horizons that inspired Pier Loti, and a novelist’s haven to bring out one’s inner Agatha Christie.

The hotel’s pièce de la résistance is the Kubbeli Saloon-Tea Lounge, a space bejewelled by light streaming through skylit domes newly liberated from their rooftop prison, allowing the play of colours to sparkle through oriental arched, stained glass windows.

On my tour through the hotel, the public relations representative relayed a story of how, after the reopening, a longtime regular guest was enjoying a peaceful drink in the saloon. When asked what he thought of the hotel’s new look, the guest paused for a moment, then replied, “I don’t like it.”

When asked exactly what it was about the renovation that he found not to his liking, he was stumped.

“It was the loss of his past, and the recognition that he couldn’t get that back,” intuited my guide.

As in anywhere, you can’t go back, but in Istanbul you can certainly visit there for a while.

Lynn Levine is the author of Frommer’s Turkey and Frommer’s Istanbul and currently lives in Barnstable, Massachusetts.

IF YOU GO

– Yesil Ev: Kabasakal Caddesi No. 5, 34122 Sultanahmet, Istanbul. www. yesilev.com.tr or 011-90-212-517-6785. Doubles from about $195.

– Ayasofya Konaklari: Sogukçesme Sokak, 34400, Sultanahmet, Istanbul. www.ayasofyakonaklari. com/en or 011-90-212-513-3660. Doubles from about $240.

– Pera Palace: Mesrutiyet Caddesi No. 52, 34430, Tepebasi, Istanbul. www.perapalace.com or 011-00-212-377-4000. Doubles from about $475. The Atatürk room is open to the public twice daily, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.