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ISTANBUL HOTEL, HOST TO LEGENDS AND WITNESS TO AN EMPIRE'S FALL, TO REOPEN AFTER RENOVATION
CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-eu-turkey-pera-palace,0,6880623.story
6:05 AM PDT, July 30, 2010
ISTANBUL (AP) - It was the last stop on the Orient Express, a
grand hotel with Istanbul's first electric elevator where artists
and aristocrats sipped champagne beneath chandeliers as the Ottoman
Empire dissolved and the world drifted toward war.
Mata Hari, accused of spying and executed in France in 1917, stayed
at the Pera Palace Hotel. So did Greta Garbo, who played the shadowy
dancer in a 1931 movie. Ernest Hemingway checked in to report on war
between Turks and Greeks. Agatha Christie is said to have crafted
"Murder on the Orient Express" in Room 411.
Then, like the empire it outlived, the hotel slid into decay.
On Sept. 1, the state-owned Pera Palace will reopen after a two-year
restoration that cost 23 million euros ($30 million), seeking to
capture the lost sparkle of what was one of Istanbul's most prominent
landmarks. It is no longer the lone luxury hotel on a hill above the
Golden Horn inlet. The former Ottoman capital teems with high-end
accommodation, some in restored imperial mansions along the Bosporus
Strait that divides the Asian and European continents.
Pinar Kartal Timer, general manager of the Pera Palace, believes
fabled guests of the past will bestow new glory on the hotel, which
held its opening ball in 1895.
"These people have left their traces in this hotel," Timer said in
an interview in the 115-room hotel Wednesday. Major structural work
and painting was complete, but the old ballroom was empty and the
mother-of-pearl bookshelves had not been installed. Workers hammered,
and layers of cardboard and plastic covered some balustrades and
marble-floored passageways.
The Pera Palace mirrors the revival of the surrounding Beyoglu area,
historically known as Pera, which comes from the Greek word for
"beyond." It was nicknamed "Little Europe" in the late 19th century,
an enclave of Greek and Armenian entrepreneurs, along with European
diplomats and businessmen who imported luxury goods from capitals to
the west.
Many local residents fled deadly unrest or moved to outlying areas,
leaving neglected stone facades to brood in the narrow, trash-filled
streets. In the last decade, shops and restaurants flooded the
central neighborhood as economic fortunes and pride in Istanbul's
heritage blossomed.
Mehmet Karaoren is a partner in an architectural firm that snapped
up a dozen Pera buildings, restoring them and selling or renting the
refitted apartments. In some years, the prices of their properties
have doubled.
"In the beginning, this was a game for us. It became a business,"
said Karaoren, who sought inspiration for his restorations during
travels to Paris, London and New York City.
A commission linked to Turkey's Culture Ministry bars changes that
would taint the historical integrity of a structure, though allowances
are made for reinforcement against earthquakes and the installation
of elevators in tall buildings with dimly lit, winding staircases.
Business interests and a lack of political will have sometimes trumped
the work of conservationists. Istanbul, home to relics and monuments
from the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, is at risk of being
placed on a list of endangered cultural treasures by UNESCO's World
Heritage Committee. That would be a serious embarrassment since the
European Union designated the city as its "cultural capital" this year.
David Michelmore, an international conservationist, said unrestored
sections of old Pera were at risk of demolition, and he compared the
area to London's Notting Hill district in the 1960s, a shabby area
before its successful rehabilitation.
"It's not tourists mostly, it's Turkish people who are going there,"
Michelmore said. "Historic centers have a huge capacity for serving
purposes of recreation and relaxation."
The original owner of the Pera Palace was Compagnie Internationale des
Wagons-Lits, which operated the Orient Express luxury train line. A
Turkish conglomerate, the Besiktas Group, now manages the hotel. It
has a modern spa and an indoor pool, as well as new elevators to
supplement the original wood and cast iron one.
The building is a mix of styles distinctive to 19th century Istanbul -
neo-classical, art nouveau and oriental. Rooms have handwoven carpets
and antique furniture mixed with the new. Sixteen are suites named
after guests including Britain's King Edward VIII and Austro-Hungarian
Emperor Franz Joseph I.
Basic room prices start at 185 euros ($240), excluding tax and
breakfast, but go higher in peak season. Ahead of the September
opening, they are 265 euros ($350).
Nobody will sleep in Room 101. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a former army
officer who founded Turkey in 1923, once used it as a base. The room
will house a museum of items belonging to Ataturk, including hats,
slippers and dignitaries' gifts.
The hotel hosted spies as well as statesmen. Kim Philby, the
British-Soviet double agent, was nearly unmasked in Istanbul, and the
agent codenamed Cicero, valet to the British ambassador in Ankara,
visited as he sold secret documents to German agents in World War II.
A witness to tumult, the Pera Palace became a target in 1941 when a
bomb exploded at the entrance shortly after the arrival of a British
diplomatic party from Bulgaria, which had sided with the Nazis.
Several people died.
Hemingway drank at the hotel's Orient Bar in the early 1920s. In
his story, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," the main character, a writer,
recalls a brawl over a woman with a British soldier in Istanbul. He
slept with the woman that night:
"...and he left her before she was awake looking blousy enough in
the first daylight and turned up at the Pera Palace with a black eye,
carrying his coat because one sleeve was missing."
From: A. Papazian
CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-eu-turkey-pera-palace,0,6880623.story
6:05 AM PDT, July 30, 2010
ISTANBUL (AP) - It was the last stop on the Orient Express, a
grand hotel with Istanbul's first electric elevator where artists
and aristocrats sipped champagne beneath chandeliers as the Ottoman
Empire dissolved and the world drifted toward war.
Mata Hari, accused of spying and executed in France in 1917, stayed
at the Pera Palace Hotel. So did Greta Garbo, who played the shadowy
dancer in a 1931 movie. Ernest Hemingway checked in to report on war
between Turks and Greeks. Agatha Christie is said to have crafted
"Murder on the Orient Express" in Room 411.
Then, like the empire it outlived, the hotel slid into decay.
On Sept. 1, the state-owned Pera Palace will reopen after a two-year
restoration that cost 23 million euros ($30 million), seeking to
capture the lost sparkle of what was one of Istanbul's most prominent
landmarks. It is no longer the lone luxury hotel on a hill above the
Golden Horn inlet. The former Ottoman capital teems with high-end
accommodation, some in restored imperial mansions along the Bosporus
Strait that divides the Asian and European continents.
Pinar Kartal Timer, general manager of the Pera Palace, believes
fabled guests of the past will bestow new glory on the hotel, which
held its opening ball in 1895.
"These people have left their traces in this hotel," Timer said in
an interview in the 115-room hotel Wednesday. Major structural work
and painting was complete, but the old ballroom was empty and the
mother-of-pearl bookshelves had not been installed. Workers hammered,
and layers of cardboard and plastic covered some balustrades and
marble-floored passageways.
The Pera Palace mirrors the revival of the surrounding Beyoglu area,
historically known as Pera, which comes from the Greek word for
"beyond." It was nicknamed "Little Europe" in the late 19th century,
an enclave of Greek and Armenian entrepreneurs, along with European
diplomats and businessmen who imported luxury goods from capitals to
the west.
Many local residents fled deadly unrest or moved to outlying areas,
leaving neglected stone facades to brood in the narrow, trash-filled
streets. In the last decade, shops and restaurants flooded the
central neighborhood as economic fortunes and pride in Istanbul's
heritage blossomed.
Mehmet Karaoren is a partner in an architectural firm that snapped
up a dozen Pera buildings, restoring them and selling or renting the
refitted apartments. In some years, the prices of their properties
have doubled.
"In the beginning, this was a game for us. It became a business,"
said Karaoren, who sought inspiration for his restorations during
travels to Paris, London and New York City.
A commission linked to Turkey's Culture Ministry bars changes that
would taint the historical integrity of a structure, though allowances
are made for reinforcement against earthquakes and the installation
of elevators in tall buildings with dimly lit, winding staircases.
Business interests and a lack of political will have sometimes trumped
the work of conservationists. Istanbul, home to relics and monuments
from the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, is at risk of being
placed on a list of endangered cultural treasures by UNESCO's World
Heritage Committee. That would be a serious embarrassment since the
European Union designated the city as its "cultural capital" this year.
David Michelmore, an international conservationist, said unrestored
sections of old Pera were at risk of demolition, and he compared the
area to London's Notting Hill district in the 1960s, a shabby area
before its successful rehabilitation.
"It's not tourists mostly, it's Turkish people who are going there,"
Michelmore said. "Historic centers have a huge capacity for serving
purposes of recreation and relaxation."
The original owner of the Pera Palace was Compagnie Internationale des
Wagons-Lits, which operated the Orient Express luxury train line. A
Turkish conglomerate, the Besiktas Group, now manages the hotel. It
has a modern spa and an indoor pool, as well as new elevators to
supplement the original wood and cast iron one.
The building is a mix of styles distinctive to 19th century Istanbul -
neo-classical, art nouveau and oriental. Rooms have handwoven carpets
and antique furniture mixed with the new. Sixteen are suites named
after guests including Britain's King Edward VIII and Austro-Hungarian
Emperor Franz Joseph I.
Basic room prices start at 185 euros ($240), excluding tax and
breakfast, but go higher in peak season. Ahead of the September
opening, they are 265 euros ($350).
Nobody will sleep in Room 101. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a former army
officer who founded Turkey in 1923, once used it as a base. The room
will house a museum of items belonging to Ataturk, including hats,
slippers and dignitaries' gifts.
The hotel hosted spies as well as statesmen. Kim Philby, the
British-Soviet double agent, was nearly unmasked in Istanbul, and the
agent codenamed Cicero, valet to the British ambassador in Ankara,
visited as he sold secret documents to German agents in World War II.
A witness to tumult, the Pera Palace became a target in 1941 when a
bomb exploded at the entrance shortly after the arrival of a British
diplomatic party from Bulgaria, which had sided with the Nazis.
Several people died.
Hemingway drank at the hotel's Orient Bar in the early 1920s. In
his story, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," the main character, a writer,
recalls a brawl over a woman with a British soldier in Istanbul. He
slept with the woman that night:
"...and he left her before she was awake looking blousy enough in
the first daylight and turned up at the Pera Palace with a black eye,
carrying his coat because one sleeve was missing."
From: A. Papazian