OLD MANSION IN CENTAL ANATOLIA BECOMING HOTEL
Hurriyet
Aug 4 2011
Turkey
Gulbenkyan Mansion in the central province of Kayseri is located only
100 meters from the historical American High School in the district
of Talas.
The historical Gulbenkyan Mansion, which was originally owned by a
prominent Armenian family in Turkey’s central Kayseri province, will
be transformed into a boutique hotel by a businessman who has pledged
nearly $1 million for its restoration. The mansion’s original owner
was an eminent Ottoman citizen of Armenian descent who influenced
the birth of the international oil industry.
“It is such a pretty edifice that it would have been selfish to
withhold such beauty from [other] people. For that reason, we thought
it appropriate to open the building as a hotel. There is a magnificent
ceiling on the mansion’s upper story that seems reminiscent of a dome.
A cross has been depicted; there are paintings in different
compartments; the woodwork features wondrous pieces of art,”
businessman Necip Dincer told the Hurriyet Daily News via e-mail.
The mansion was originally owned by Kalust Gulbenkyan and his family,
who also own the Calouste Gulbenkyan Museum in Lisbon.
Dincer said he had visited the forlorn building several times and
immediately contacted the mansion’s previous owners in Istanbul when he
heard it was going to be put on sale. The permit for the restoration
work has been obtained, Dincer said, and the mansion will be opened
as a hotel immediately after the renovation work is complete.
The mansion is located only some 100 meters from the historical
American High School in the district of Talas in Kayseri, Dincer said.
Various stories are circulated among the locals regarding the
Gulbenkyan family, he added.
“I am in possession of certain information [regarding Gulbenkyan,
including that] he was from Talas, and that he was arrested in Sivas,
then migrated to Istanbul and later moved abroad. It is also said he
had close connections with the Ottoman dynasty. Had the family been
living in Kayseri today, an intellectual with such tastes [back]
in that time would certainly have been a citizen beneficial to [the
city,]” Dincer said.
Kalust Gulbenkyan, an Ottoman citizen of Armenian ancestry, played
an important role in the birth of the international oil industry and
led efforts to convince Sultan Abdulhamid II, also dubbed the “Red
Sultan,” to purchase oil fields near the city of Mosul in present
day northern Iraq.
Beyzade Bulent Osman, one of Abdulhamit II’s grandsons, confirmed
this knowledge during an interview he gave to the Daily News last year.
‘Kayseri has been spent out’
“This place smells profusely of history; a rare settlement that still
bears memories of old, though they are a bit tired,” Dincer said,
adding that he was born in Kayseri himself and that the district of
Talas bore a special significance for him.
The tourism potential of the city still remains untapped, according
to Dincer, who claimed that Kayseri is a city that has been spent
out over the years.
“Historical buildings were demolished and replaced with new ones.
Ignorant and unconscious behavior de-personalized this city, whose
roots go far back in time. Buildings 15 stories high were constructed
over historical houses and mansions that were demolished. Only a tiny
portion of Talas’ remains have been preserved, and that was through
personal efforts of individuals,” he said.
Dincer said he has been striving for years alongside the chamber of
commerce and the tourism association to help preserve the historical
fabric of the city, but they still could not exert enough influence,
he added.
“Because the only [thing] the city’s administrators believe in is
opportunism,” he said.
“When this mansion is up and running, we want the Armenians and Greeks
of Kayseri to come here and see this edifice,” Dincer said. “We are
going to strive for [them] to remember their own cultures and the
traces they left behind and to come over here.
“Those governing us are to blame for the causes of this lag. The
incapability to promote to the world Anatolia, the bearer of thousands
of years of culture, is the product of a mindset that [sails] in
the opposite direction of where [the rest of] the world is going,”
he said, adding that there had been some new momentum in recent years
regarding tourism in Anatolia.
The name of the mansion will remain as “Gulbenkyan” even after the
building is transformed into a boutique hotel, he said.
“We need the [kind of] sensitivity that will save the rest of Talas
and win it for tourism,” he said.
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