Prime Diving Spots in Altinkum
“Make yourself at home” may be a refrain heard in guesthouses the international over, just it takes on recent meaning when it comes from one of your host country’s wealthiest families ” and when your temporary “house” is their mansion.
The Buyukkusoglu family, who made their fortune in the automotive industry, converted their 48,400-sq-ft (4,500 sq m) modern manor house in Altinkum, Turkey, on the edge of the Aegean Sea into a 12-suite hotel, and in 2007 opened it to paying guests as the Casa Dell’Arte.
Known for its cultural and historical heritage, Turkey is also full of prime diving spots, with the Antalya, Balikesir, anakkale, Mersin and Mugla coasts topping divers lists, according to the Anatolia news agency.
The hotel is also a way for the family to apportion their super latest Turkish art collection, which is regularly freshened by their Altinkum Property gallery in Istanbul. The walls are adorned with pieces by Turkish artists such as abstract masters Devrim Erbil and Adnan Coker, as well as works by Overseas artists letting in Colombian sculptor and painter Fernando Botero. And impending door is the Casa Dell’Arte Art Village, an equally chic 38-suite hotel with in-house artists who run free painting and sculpture workshops for guests ” precisely in case looking at all that great art inspires you to create some of your own.
“We wanted the Altinkum Property For Sale to still feel like a house, and to be aforementioned social,” says owner Fatos Buyukkusoglu, who led the hotel’s design team and lives in a smaller house on the property. “We designed a lot of inner courtyards and spaces where guests can come Unitedly ” at the dinner table, in the lounge or by the pool.” Meals are taken at a 14-seat dining table, on the terrace, or on various sculptural bits of lawn furniture, and each night guests gather by the fireplace in the reading room or on the sofa in the lounge.
