Jumeirah has appointed designer Anouska Hempel to spearhead the renovation of the 120-year-old Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey.
Hempel will add pink taffeta, moire silks, lace curtains, velvet cushions and tiny tables, in silver and cranberry tones to the design of the patisserie
Renowned hotelier and interior designer Hempel will create new concepts for the public areas and two presidential suites of the luxury museum hotel.
Scheduled for completion by mid-2013, the project will aim to enhance the Belle Époque feel of the hotel.
Jumeirah said in a statement that Hempel aims to “display the feminine side of Patisserie de Pera’s Art Nouveau décor while complementing the more masculine characteristics of the hotel’s interior”.
She plans to add pink taffeta, moiré silks, lace curtains, velvet cushions and tiny tables, in silver and cranberry tones to the design of the patisserie.
Each area of the plan will be refurbished over a one-week period. As the project does not involve major construction work, hotel guests will not be impacted by the redesign.
Initially launched in 1892, Pera Palace Hotel, Jumeirah re-opened in 2010 after a refurbishment of the building.
The group said the redesign aims to enhance the hotel’s status among the luxurious grand hotels of the world, where guests can experience the glamour of a bygone era.
via Jumeirah hires designer for Istanbul hotel revamp | HotelierMiddleEast.com.
The city walls of Constantinople were famously impenetrable. A millennium’s worth of would-be invaders perished at their base until the Ottoman armies of Mehmet II breached them in 1453 and found a new name for the conquered city: Istanbul. They’re still pretty treacherous. As my friend and I climbed some higgledy-piggledy steps to the top of the ruined fortification on a clear winter morning, a man with a suspicious moustache and an armful of piping called to us: ‘Hayir!’ That means no. He pointed out that the staircase we were climbing ended in a sheer drop: an Escher-esque optical illusion had blinded us to this abrupt fact. ‘Better!’ he said, gesturing towards a steeper ascent, though one that at least had the benefit of not throwing the triumphant climber to an absurd and painful death.
The mosque of Suleyman
Once we had thanked the moustached man and negotiated a terrifying ladder carved into the sheer stone face, we were rewarded with a 20m-high view over Istanbul’s western districts. Tiled and corrugated-iron houses crouched on top of one another in various states of dis-repair; metal chimneys emitted wood smoke; distant cars hissed over the bridge on the misty Golden Horn; beyond stretched the city’s ever-expanding suburbs (the population is over 13 million, swelled by Anatolian Turks seeking prosperity – in 1950, it was less than a million).
The famous Istanbul panorama takes in the moody strait of the Bosphorous and a skyline of domes and minarets. It has inspired tourists’ rose-scented dreams of the Sultan’s harem, visions of Europe and Asia colliding, and tactical speculations as to the destination of the vast Russian ships on their way from the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
However, it is the view of these poor districts that the Turkish Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk commends in his memoir, Istanbul: Memories of the City. He is one of many local writers who have come here to escape those Western clichés, revel in the ruin of empires and satisfy a ‘craving for a mournful beauty expressing the feelings of loss and defeat’.
After a couple of minutes on top, we were more worried about escaping the volatile-looking youths who had clambered up behind us – not a good place for a scuffle this, what with the quaint lack of a handrail (at times, European Union membership feels a long way off). We surrendered the fortification without a fight and went down to explore the winding streets below.
Pamuk makes a special case for hüzün, the peculiarly Turkish sadness of Istanbul. Hüzün, he contends, is ‘not only a spiritual state, but a state of mind that is ultimately as life affirming as it is negating’. He spends around five pages listing instances of hüzün: ‘I speak… of the children who play ball between the cars on cobblestone streets… of the empty boathouses of the old Bosphorous villas… of the crowds of men fishing from the Galata Bridge… of marble ruins that were for centuries glorious street fountains but now stand dry, their taps stolen…’
Istanbul is a city where the touristy stuff is worth doing: the Haghia Sophia (the Holy Roman cathedral reconsecrated as a mosque by the invading Ottoman armies) is haunting. The Blue Mosque next door is so geometrically remarkable, you suspect that the architects made use of one of the spyrographs that eager men hawk outside to do the blueprint.
Still, if you seek more than the average Japanese tour group, you could do worse than search for hüzün. Around a winding corner in the western districts, a man patiently soldered a metal frame; on the commercial thoroughfare of the Istiklal Caddesi, a chestnut seller pulled his collar up against the cold as smoke curled around him; on the Galata Bridge, dark-clothed fisherman did indeed dangle their rods. Still, Pamuk didn’t mention that walking below those darkly dressed fisherman, you risk losing an eye to their hooks – or that the anchovies, sardines and mackerel they catch are transformed by macho chefs on moored boats into astonishing sandwiches.
I found Istanbul can just as easily turn up delights – especially food-wise – as absurdities. Near Taksim Square, a group of football fans lit flares and performed a diabolical dance; in a carcinogenic speakeasy in Üsküdar on the Asian side, students manically contravened the recent smoking ban; in Balat, we were prevented from crossing a street by a film crew shooting a soap opera. (Turkish TV audiences are newly hooked on such indigenous soaps; a Westernised gallerist complained to me that their popularity is the principal bar to political reform.)
I sensed tension, too. As we wandered around Çihangir, a Westernised district, my wife was asked by an old Muslim woman to cover her head; when we reported this to a Turkish friend, she was furious at this evidence of Turkey’s secularism slipping. Religious dress was banned by Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, in 1923 – but you see it again now, often in the form of a rich man’s burqa’d wife emerging from a blacked-out SUV in the posh shopping streets of Nisantasi. Many young Turks we spoke to complained of a sort of ‘Arabisation’ and seemed to party all the harder to rail against it.
Pamuk was certainly on to something with his insistence on walking the hilly streets. Actually, you have little choice. The ferries that cross the Bosphorous are justly cherished by Istanbulus (we saw dolphins on one crossing to the Asian side). Otherwise, the public transport is more like a box of mismatching toys than an integrated system: a tram dating back to the 19th century, which would in most other cities be classed as a novelty, is here written on to the maps.
The taxis are little better; all have seat belts, but nowhere to buckle them in. Sensing our unease at this, one lunatic driver amused himself by applying the brakes at the last possible moment in the course of a journey westwards. As my friend handed him the fare, I watched him switch a 20 lira note for a five lira note and try to claim that my friend had made a mistake with his Turkish currency. ‘I saw that!’ I said. The driver laughed, and asked for a tip all the same. ES
WHERE TO STAY
The Pera Palace hotel has been refurbished to its fin de siècle elegance, complete with the first elevator in Turkey. Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express here – and the central court is a sophisticated place to take tea. Beware: the Turkish bath treatment is bracingly violent. Rooms from £205 (perapalace.com)
“Harrods Magazine,” owned by the renowned British shopping center where London’s wealthiest – including the royal family – has listed Istanbul’s Pera Palace Hotel as a must see tourist destination, according to a press release.
In a story ranking the world’s seven best boutique hotels the magazine’s readers should not miss during their 2011 travels, writer Julian Allason only nominated hotels that are characterized by an exotic and luxurious style.
The article stated the recently re-opened Pera Palace Hotel has preserved its former grandeur and presents a perfect blend of old-world charm and contemporary luxury. The article praised the hotel’s suites and rooms – all of which bear a different style – and its afternoon tea service.
The article also noted that Ernest Hemingway and Graham Greene both stayed in the hotel at one time or another, and visitors are still able to book room 411, where Agatha Christie stayed while writing “Murder on the Orient Express.”
The Pera Palace first opened in 1892 to serve the well-to-do passengers arriving on the Orient Express. In recent years, as its carpets and upholstery frayed, it developed a sort of aging dowager appeal. But in September, after a two-year, $30 million renovation, the hotel reopened with modern amenities installed and historic touches intact.
LOCATION
The Pera Palace is a short walk from the shops on Istiklal Caddesi as well as the bars, cafes and restaurants in the Tunel area. It is also within a few blocks of performance spaces like Babylon and Salon.
THE ROOM
I reached my blissfully quiet Deluxe room on the fifth floor via a relic of the hotel’s glamorous past: the first electric elevator in Istanbul. (New ones are also available to the right of the lobby.) The décor, of dark woods and shades of sage, was soothing and tasteful. The supremely comfortable king bed was dressed in fine white linens, monogrammed shams, a feather duvet and an elegantly patterned textile. A dresser contained goodies like Harem-brand pistachio Turkish delight and Pringles. The minibar included Turkish and international beers and liquors (no price list was given). A flat-screen TV offered many channels including news stations in English.
THE BATHROOM
This was practically a private hammam. A gray marble shower stall had three water sources: a rain-forest shower head, a hand-held European-style sprayer and a waterfall spout perfect for soothing the neck and shoulders after a long plane — or train — ride. The stall, which held a seating area, was shielded by a patterned glass pane reminiscent of an Ottoman window’s privacy screen. (Some rooms also have bathtubs.) The rest of the bathroom was smallish, with a marble floor and countertop.
AMENITIES
The Pera Palace’s newly renovated Orient Bar is on the ground floor. The bar seems more low-key than it probably was when Hemingway drank there, but it’s easy to imagine lively gatherings on the adjacent open-air terrace. The hotel also renovated its French patisserie and Moorish-style tea salon; both are comfortable places to soak up the atmosphere while reading “Murder on the Orient Express.” There’s a spa on the lower level that has a sauna, a steam room, a fitness room, a small tiled swimming pool and a luxurious marble hammam. And the hotel contains a space that is a nod to history: the Ataturk Museum Room, where the founder of modern Turkey first stayed in 1917.
ROOM SERVICE
My Turkish Breakfast Plate (46 lira, or about $33 at 1.38 lira to the dollar) came in exactly the 20 minutes I was told it would take. The “plate” was actually two: one white Richard Ginori porcelain platter with the traditional Turkish breakfast of tomato, cucumber, cheeses and smoked meats with jams, honey in the comb and kaymak (a clotted cream), and a second with two perfectly fried eggs kept warm in a special “hot box” on the side of the trolley. The orange juice was freshly squeezed, and the filtered coffee and hot milk were served in silvery pots inscribed with “Pera Palas Oteli,” recalling the splendor of an earlier age.
BOTTOM LINE
Restored to its former glory, the Pera Palace bolsters the luxury lodging market in Istanbul. And with features like an elegant lobby and afternoon tea service, it appeals as much to nostalgia buffs as it does to high-end travelers.
Pera Palace Hotel, Mesrutiyet Caddesi, 52; Beyoglu; (90-212) 377-4000; perapalace.com. Rooms start at $320 with tax.
A version of this article appeared in print on November 14, 2010, on page TR4 of the New York edition.
via Hotel Review – Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul – NYTimes.com.
