Originally Published in Time Out Istanbul magazine, 2004
The venerable Istanbul institution invokes the mystery and romance of its Ottoman roots
By Aubree Galvin Caunter
The Pera Palas is a century-old beauty, resting now, majestically. A stately matron, she sits quietly and keeps her secrets.
Once, she was a society hostess, and her grand halls welcomed the rich and powerful. Sister to the mysterious Orient Express, her name was world-renown, synonymous with luxury and indulgence.
During her long years, Pera Palas has been a confidant to spies and writers. Handmaiden to kings and queens. Patron to actors, singers and poets.
She has survived the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the founding of the Turkish Republic and two World Wars.
Today, Pera Palas trades on this storied past to ensure a future. Her heyday was in centuries past – in millennia past – and as with many aging icons, it is now her history that will determine her fortune.
The Guest Book
For antiquarians and amateur historians, Pera Palas is quintessentially Istanbul, a glimpse of traditional Turkey and a nostalgia seekers’ refuge. It’s a living museum where every wall and every floor echoes with long-gone voices.
Everyone who was anyone in the late 19th and early 20th centuries stayed there: the founder of the Turkish republic Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and subsequent Turkish presidents. Leaders from Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, America, Greece, India, Russia and Japan. Royalty from Romania, Serbia, Italy, Zanzibar, Japan, Bulgaria, Macedonia, England and Libya. Hollywood icons Sarah Bernhardt, Greta Garbo, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Julio Iglesias and Alfred Hitchcock. Writers Agatha Christie, Pierre Loti, Ernest Hemingway, Frances Foster and Ian Fleming. Spies Mata Hari, Kim Philby and Cicero.
Each room in the Pera Palas bears a brass plaque commemorating the famous guest, or guests, who have laid their heads inside. What a party it would be to have them all together at the same time. What would Greto Garbo say to Hemingway over a tea in the Orient Express Bar? Would Agatha Christie choose to write instead about a spy named James Bond?
The Orient Express
Although the Orient Express began its trans-European trek in 1883, it would be five years before the route was extended far enough East to reach Istanbul. Once there, however, the first passengers found no modern accommodations suitably matched to the finery of the voyage itself. Thus, the Wagons Lits company, owners of the Orient Express, built the hotel and founded a subsidiary to run it. (Sharp observes will note that this is the reason The Orient Express and the Pera Palas both bare the same crest).
Construction on the hotel, designed by French architect Alexander Vallaury, began in May 1892 and was completed a year later. Horse-drawn carriages brought passengers from Sirkeci Station in Eminönü up the grand slope of Tepebaşı for the opening ceremonies in October 1893. Some accounts record Sultan Abdülhamit among the revelers who attended the festivities.
For nearly a century, the hotel was volleyed between a series of owners. It passed through several private proprietors in the early 1900s before the state took up management in 1923. That same year, a Lebanese immigrant and friend of Atatürk, Misbah Muhayyeş, was named manager of the hotel. He subsequently purchased it in 1928. Two decades later, Muhayyeş via his will passed stewardship of the hotel to several local charities, and asked that the Istanbul government be appointed trustee to the estate. But, in 1963, the state withdrew, leaving the hotel entirely under the direction of the charities, which rented the property to a consortium of businessmen and their company, Istanbul Hotel Management and Tourism Trading. Then, beginning in 1977, Hasan Süzer, a key member of the consortium, executed several business deals which within two years, yielded full ownership of the property.
Today, under Süzer’s leadership, the hotel has been completely restored according to government standards, both inside and out. It has 145 rooms, all with handwoven Turkish carpets and modern plumbing. The original pipes could not produce enough pressure to bring water to the upper floors, which were for decades stocked instead with pitchers and bowls. The ground floor has antique-laden meeting rooms that can be connected to create a grand space for up to 400 banquet guests. The Pera Restaurant, where Atatürk often dined, serves a buffet breakfast and menu dinner. The Orient Bar is a popular destination for tourists who wander in to marvel at the Ottoman relics and stay for a drink in the period-style pub.
The country’s first electric elevator still ferries guests oh-so-slowly to upper floors. The lobby, which once took reservations for heads of states the world over, is quiet on sleepy winter afternoons. Glass cases hold artifacts from the hotel’s finer days: wine lists, glassware, menus and bills are the detritus of a golden age.
Terror at Pera Palas
The Pera Palas remains perched above the Golden Horn with a spectacular view of the shoreline below. The grand entrance, so often pictured in history books, is on Meşrutiyet Caddesi. Just down the street is the British Consulate, where a car bombing in November 2003 resulted in the murder of the Consular General, among many others. This was not the first time terror, aimed at a British diplomat, lapped at the doors of Pera Palas.
In March 1941, at exactly 9:35 p.m., an explosive hidden inside a guest’s bag detonated in the lobby killing six and injuring 19. The target was a British Ambassador who had traveled to Istanbul to discuss Turkey’s role in World War II. The hotel sustained extensive damage: the force of the bomb blew out windows and doors inside the hotel and throughout Tepebaşı. Cracks caused by the explosion are still visible in the marble walls of the lobby.
Depending on sources cited, the hotel may also have been the location of a political assassination of an Azerbaijani diplomat in 1921. If indeed the crime was carried out at the Pera Palas, the story continues that an errant shot struck a man sitting in a chaise in the bar, scattering all of the patrons who left, quite naturally, without remembering to pay. The bartender was put out of business.
The Ghost of Agatha Christie
Despite all assurances to the contrary by hotel staff, the Pera Palas is surely haunted. The sheer number of famous guests alone would suggest a brisk trade in the ghost business, but the hotel has only one confirmed other-worldly stowaway.
It was during Agatha Christie’s visits to the hotel between 1926 and 1932 that she was inspired to write her famous novel “The Murder on the Orient Express”. A mystery far more compelling for local ghost hunters, however, is the 11-day period during Christie’s life when the writer disappeared without a trace, only to return with no recollection of the events or no desire to speak of them. After her death, a Hollywood production company contacted a psychic to finally put to the question to rest.
On March 7, 1979, a séance was conducted in Christie’s former room, No. 411. According to reports, Christie’s spirit communicated to the psychic the location of an old key, hidden in the floor boards near the door of her room. The key, found exactly where the psychic had described, was to have been used as a talisman during a second séance when experts hoped to locate Christie’s diary, thought to contain the answer to the writer’s missing days. This second séance never occurred, though, and the key remains hidden in a bank vault under the guard of hotel proprietors who say that “new attempts (to contact Christie) shall be made when the time is ripe for it.”
Seeds of the Republic
During the Allied Forces occupation of Istanbul between 1920 and 1923, while his mother was kept under observation in his home in Akaretler, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk often chose to stay at the Pera Palas. He met with colleagues in his first-floor room, No. 101, where they evaluated daily the country’s dilemma. Hotel historians say that “the seeds of the Republic of Turkey were planted there.”
In the salon rooms, Atatürk faced Allied Forces Commander in Chief Gen. Harrington. The story goes that Atatürk refused the general’s invitation, saying, “Tell them it is our custom for the host to do the inviting.” If Harrington removed his troops from Turkey, only then would he be free to extend the courtesy.
Today, Atatürk’s room is preserved as an appointment-only museum. The space has been left virtually untouched since the leader’s days in residence, off and on between the years 1915 and 1937. Some 32 items in the room are personal effects acquired from Rıdvan Gürari, who was employed as a member of Atatürk’s security team for 10 years. Among these items are: military field goggles, reading glasses, a toothbrush, tooth powder, a fork and knife, tea and coffee cups, spurs, monogrammed underwear, hats, pajamas and slippers. A bedspread that was presented by Atatürk’s adopted daughter, Ülkü, still rests on his bed. A display case also holds a letter in French by the Greek President Elefterios Venizelos written in 1934 nominating Atatürk as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Perhaps the most shiver-inducing piece is a silk tapestry which was presented to Atatürk in 1929 during a state visit by an Indian Maharajah. It features a clock stopped at the time of 09:07 surrounded by 11 elephants and 10 candles. Followers say the tapestry foretold the exact time and date of Atatürk’s death, which occurred nine years later at 09:05 on November 10, 1938. (Believers say, the tapestry clock indicates the time of his true death since the brain continues to function for two minutes after the heart stops beating.)
The Golden Years
For four decades, Cevat Bayındır has made his living at the Pera Palas. He started working as a reception assistant and is now head of public relations. Staffers routinely defer to his expertise in all-things-Pera.
“I’ve worked here without interruption since 1964,” he says. “We’ve had many very important people stay here. I’ve enjoyed in every small way helping them somehow.”
His favorites are film star Jackie Chan and former American first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Her Pera Palas adventure is detailed in a book he helped write about the history of the hotel. Apparently, Mrs. Onassis was beset by eager news reporters upon her arrival in the summer of 1983. With the help of an sympathetic manager, she was able to slip out the back fire escape and tour the Anatolian side of the Bosphorus until her furtive return, via the same back door, in the evening.
It is clear that Bayındır is enchanted with his former guest, and perhaps with all of the former guests of this, his second home. He is a man of few words when it comes to his feelings for the Pera Palas.
“I love the hotel,” he says simply. He is guardian over the story of her birth and her prime. He came to her in their middle age. Now, they are sharing their golden years, grateful to have memories that last a lifetime.
