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OTTOMAN OASIS
The Mehmet Ali Ağa Konak is one of the Cornucopia Hotel Collection’s most romantic retreats. Rupert Scott reviews a rare Ottoman gem.
Coastal southwest Turkey, so rich in ruins, has disappointingly little to offer when it comes to Ottoman architecture. But there are a few exceptions and of these the most extraordinary, and also the most unexpected must be the Mehmet Ali Ağa Konaği in Reşadiye, near Datça. For the enthusiast of such things, arriving at the Mehmet Ali Ağa Konaği is like stumbling across a beautiful palm-fringed oasis after a very long parched trek through a very dry desert.
This is a really very fine Ottoman Konak from the early 19th century, now restored to an 18-room hotel. The best five rooms are on the first floor, all opening off a wide and very pretty pillared loggia overlooking the Konak’s three-sided courtyard. These rooms are nicely furnished with some good mid-19th century pieces (a bed from the Yildiz Palace, for instance, and some fine mirrors) and have lovely views south-west towards the mountains and towards Symi. The bathrooms are wittily disguised as cupboards. The best room was of course the Aga’s. His Başoda is now the sitting room of the hotel’s principal suite. It is difficult to convey what a charming room this is. A low, simply embroidered, white sedir runs on three sides. There are muraled views of Istanbul, probably by a local artist and painted perhaps from memory, or perhaps from the verbal description of the Aga himself. The painting is naïve, provincial and enchanting. The ceiling is intensely decorated, and at its centre is a wonderful painted medallion that seems to spin as you lie back on the cushions of the sedir and look at it. Their other 13 new rooms are in an annexe that looks onto the hotel garden. These rooms are comfortable and well done, but not in the same league as the rooms in the Konak itself. There is a small private hamam in the old part of the Konak which can be used by special arrangement.
The Mehmet Ali Ağa Konaği is the perfect base to explore the Datça peninsula, which has more to offer than just the famous ruins at the end of the peninsula. There is a swimming pool, a good chef and usually other friendly guests who have also decided to go ‘off the beaten track’ to this most surprising of hotels.
When I first saw this house in the village of Reşadiye, in October 2001, it was a heartbreaking sight. What had clearly been a very large and grand Ottoman mansion (konak) was now falling apart and seemed destined to decay beyond the point of no return. There were holes in the roof, the walls were subsiding and the ground floor was a cowshed.
There had until recently been an old lady living in the building, occupying the painted başoda, or salon, on the first floor. Though dilapidated, unfurnished and apparently on the verge of collapse, this was still recognisably a very beautiful room. The murals were streaked with rainwater stains and cemented over in places. Most of the window glass was broken and the window frames were rotten. The plastered, carved and painted ceiling was sagging and seemed about to cave in. Much of the building was in too dangerous a condition to explore. From what survived, however, I could still see what the konak had looked like in its former glory 100 or 150 years earlier.
Known locally as the Goca Ev (Big House), the mansion dates from the last decade of the 18th century and enjoyed its heyday under Mehmed Halil Ağa, thought to have been born around 1785 and to have died in 1868. It is the largest and most ambitious of several houses across the Datça peninsula built by the Tuhfezade family, the local magnates. Until the death of Mehmed Halil it was almost certainly the harem, the private family quarters of the ağa and his wife or wives. Mehmed Halil probably received guests in a nearby selâmlık, of which nothing now survives.
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