Sahir Erozan on Maçakızı, Bodrum: «I created this place on my mother’s DNA»
The seed of the Maçakızı concept kept growing under the direction of Ms. Emiroğlu’s son, Sahir Erozan. «The structure is all steel, but we covered it with recycled wood, picked up from villages on top of the mountains»
Maçakızı, Bodrum: a history of hospitality dating back to the 1970s
A couple of thousand years have passed since Homer talked about the ‘wine-dark sea’ of the Aegean, but the sprawling peninsula adorned with its sweet orange and lime trees still possesses that beauty. A decadence where the blinding rays of the sun meet the blue.
Maçakızı means the Queen of Spades. «My mother came here in 1977» says Sahir Erozan, hotelier and restaurateur at the Bodrum-based eponymous hotel structure. «Back in those days, you had to deal with people inhabiting the village, and they were never granting contracts. My mom had a quaint place with sixteen rooms. A pension. Or a bed and breakfast I would say. The bathroom was shared, but it was located on the beach».
«Bodrum back then was one strip of land like Positano. Cows were in the back of the property. The rural area was hardly regulated. However, when she lost her first venue, she managed to move to a new one the next day. She found a place that could only be reached via boat. There wasn’t a road. It became the first beach club in Turkey». Ms. Ayla Emiroğlu moved to Bodrum in the Seventies, when there was little more than a few houses, cars, and cats in the city.
The evolution of the bed and breakfast and the creation of Maçakızı
Since then, the seed of the Maçakızı concept kept growing under the direction of Ms. Emiroğlu’s son, Sahir Erozan. Since the year 2000, Maçakızı has been located in Türkbükü, offering a boutique hotel structure with a private beach.
The vision of the bed and breakfast facility immersed in the silence of nature to host writers, artists, and intellectuals evolved. Today, Maçakızı has fifty-one rooms: 25 with a garden view framed by bougainvillea plants, and 26 facing the Aegean Sea. 22 suites are available for guests, including 6 Villa Suites offering a space for privacy.
Sahir Erozan, a hotelier and restaurateur between Turkey and the US
It was also in 1977 that Ms. Emiroğlu’s son spent his last summer in Turkey before leaving to the States to study. Looking for success in the US, he stopped at Washington D.C. There, he managed to create his own business around restaurants and clubs in the capital. Sahir recalls that he almost had forgotten the smell of flowers in the garden of his mother’s small pension in Bodrum.
In the 1990s, however, on the occasion of a trip back home, he fell in love with the peninsula again, with its smell, color, and feelings, and chose to help Ayla with the construction of her second beach club in Gölköy, and then the property that we know and love today as Maçakızı Hotel in Türkbükü.
«In the US I had clubs and restaurants, that was my life. I had two different places, and one of the two was quite big: two floors, 7,000 square feet each, club upstairs, bar, and restaurant downstairs, I lived on the third floor. I was in Washington for 17 years».
«At the beginning I started like that, just for one month of summer vacation. I was partnering with my mother for that beach club. When we opened Maçakızı, I started spending the summer here, and I kept going back and forth from Washington. Can you imagine those days? No direct flights. From here to Istanbul, Istanbul–New York, New York–Washington, and then a week later I had to go back. I ultimately moved back here in 2003».
Sahir Erozan, a homecoming for the entrepreneur: the Maçakızı project
Maçakızı was born in the year 2000, and since then was renovated, keeping as a reference point the rustic style dear to Ayla and the Turkey territory. The menu of the restaurant was updated with international flavors as a result of Erozan’s travels with executive chef Aret Sahakyan.
«I did this place on my mother’s DNA. No TVs in the rooms, a bunch of pillows. The garden is my mother’s thing. This is a sort of motto: it’s like a jungle, but with Mediterranean trees, bushes, and flowers. Beach life. Lunchtime with the buffet. In the evenings, we do fine dining. We started with 99% Turkish clients. Now we are at approximately 20% Turkish clients, 80% foreign visitors. It took us six to seven years to stabilize. Then I doubled the property».
«A beach club in Bodrum is about docks. Maçakızı was the first one. We have a rocky entry to the water. People started seeing this thing, they liked it, as it’s cleaner than the beach with sand. I took care of the realization of the project in the most environmentally friendly way I could. I didn’t touch the land» states Mr. Erozan.
Keeping an eye on the property’s reputation between hôtellerie, music and clubbing
«In the afternoon we have music going on for about three hours. People start moving around, and the bar gets crowded. It’s a time to party and relax, but I don’t want this to go on for too long. At 8 pm the music goes down, and it’s time for an intimate dinner. Later in the evening, the hype is back».
«Usually, music starts at 7 till late at night. Instead, I start at 5, stop at 8. No one is allowed to go around wearing swimsuits anymore. After dinner, it’s about the crowd and the vibe».
«I don’t have a party every day». Mr. Erozan’s choice wants to avoid his hotel destination from becoming known as a club. «I think about the long-term dreamy reputation of Maçakızı».
Here, the decision to add – as the last evolution of the property – the main lobby that stays open during the winter period as well. «We have New Year parties here, but I’m also going to do intellectual gatherings, to talk about issues going on in the world. I want to attract interesting people».
«Bodrum is a place where to spend winter»: Ahmet Alatas lobby project
The main lobby was conceived and built in 2008 by architect Ahmet Alataş. «The closed area is surrounded by glass windows. We have four fireplaces, and a movie area. Bodrum is a place where to spend winter». Ahmet Alataş grew up in Sahir’s mother’s hometown. «His parents were friends of my mom’s, so he had a DNA of the area. Although my mom was bohemian and rustic. He was metal, glass, steel. We’ve been working for a long time together. I think I drove him crazy, but it’s okay».
When designing the frame, Sahir insisted on using wood.«We have to cover the steel because we can’t just expose it so much that it changes the whole environment», Mr. Erozan insisted. «The structure is all steel, but we covered it with recycled wood. It was picked up from the villages on top of the mountains. The roof of that thing is a huge design there, but nobody sees it because it’s all covered by the trees and the bushes. We are investing in solar energy. In two, three years, it will be all solar».
A 24/7 butler service at Villa Maçakızı: a new project open all year round
One of the latest additions to Maçakızı is the Villa, a project that is expanding the hospitality tradition of the family towards new horizons. Located in Bodrum’s Paradise Bay, the Villa’s doors are open all year round.
The spaces were designed during the winter period with long reflection by Mr. Erozan and chef – and partner in the project – Carlo Bernardini. The designer and friend Barbara Pensoy curated the atmosphere, with modern touches without losing the original Seventies touch.
Villa Maçakızı offers a 24/7 butler service, a fireplace for colder days, floor heating, and a gastronomic offer centered around local fresh ingredients from the herb garden in a gastronomic experience curated by Chef Carlo Bernardini and his team. All is prepared in loco thanks to facilities such as the barbeque grill and wood-burning oven.
About Carlo Bernardini: plant-powered and raw organic cuisine at Villa Maçakızı
Daily menus are curated daily at Villa Maçakızı by Chef Carlo Bernardini, accommodating the guests’ requests, including plant-powered and raw organic options.
The Chef, also Mr. Erozan’s partner for the Villa project, bases its foundations in Italian cuisine, and specifically the city of Venice, where he was born and raised. His first steps were in the family-owned hotel-restaurant. Graduated in hotellerie in Switzerland and gained experiences in hotel structures such as the Sorchester in London, the Palace in St Moritz, and the Cipriani in Venice, before settling in Turkey.
Hotel Maçakızı, Bodrum
The history of Hotel Maçakızı dates back to 1977 when Ms. Ayla Emiroğlu moved to Bodrum. In the same year, her son, Sahir Erozan, moved to the US and would stay there until the early 2000s. From a bed and breakfast with a rural atmosphere surrounded by nature, Maçakızı today is a luxury boutique hotel with fifty-one rooms, a restaurant, a beach club with a deck. The latest addition, Villa Maçakızı, offers ten additional rooms with a 24/7 butler service and a naturally-sourced cuisine curated by Chef and partner Carlo Bernardini.
Carlo Mazzoni
