türkçe links to original Turkish article
(GazeteKadıköy 23-29 November 2018)
Looks pretty good even before rehab.
One of the most majestic buildings in Moda, Istanbul, is the Mahmut
Muhtar Paşa Köşkü, also known as Mermer Konak, that is now
located within the campus of the Istanbul Kadıköy Lisesi (high school).
The köşk (mansion) is desperately in need of restoration. Its history
dates to the 1870s when an Italian architect built it for banker Alfred
Frederic James Barker, who lived in the mansion with his family for
10 years. After the earthquake of 1894, the mansion was sold to a
Greek named Dimitri Veldemi.
A staircase fit for a pasha.
Gazi Ahmet Muhtar Paşa, an Ottoman statesman, scientist and Prime
Minister, bought the building from Veldemi. Gazi Muhtar was the
first Ottoman administrator to recommend the adoption of the
international time system and the 'Milâdi' (Christian) calendar. He
had been a hero of the ''93 War' (Turkish-Russian War of 1878) and
served as the Ottoman representative in Cairo from 1885 to 1906.
Gazi Ahmet Muhtar Paşa
Gazi Ahmet Muhtar in Egypt see this previous TNT report for
more on his Cairo days.
Gazi Muhtar gave the mansion to his newly married son Mahmut
Muhtar Paşa, who was later the Ottoman Navy Minister for 90 days
in his father's 1912 government, and whose bride was Princess
Nimetullah Sultan, the daughter of Egyptian Khedive İsmail Paşa.
The couple lived in the home from 1897 to 1929. It had an
electricity plant in the garden, at a time when there was no regular
electrical grid on the Anatolian side of Istanbul.
Mahmut Muhtar Paşa
But Mahmut Muhtar Paşa found himself in great difficulty
because of two warships he had ordered to be built in England
while Navy Minister. The 'Sultan Osman' and the 'Reşadiye'
warships were commandeered by Winston Churchill in August
1914, as World War I loomed and Mahmut Muhtar Paşa was
found liable for the warships not being delivered to Turkey
by a court of the new Turkish Republic in 1929. He was forced to
pay 22,000 pieces of gold in compensation.
Mahmut Muhtar Paşa, stung by this stain on the family's reputation,
left the mansion and settled in Cairo. He died on a cruise in 1935.
His family, though, was left destitute in Cairo by the revolution of
1952 and returned to the mansion in Moda. The family held an
auction in 1956 and the land was purchased at the auction by the
National Ministry of Education, which turned the building into
the Kadıköy Kız Lisesi (high school for girls). In 2002 the school
was made co-ed and the name was changed to Istanbul Kadıköy
Lisesi in 2008. Based on a decision in 2017, the mansion is now
scheduled to be restored.
Moda (mark)
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